Fighting Fire with Fire
by kklusmeier
Summary: Baby Harry is carefully examined by Dumbledore and is revealed to be a horcrux. Dumbledore, fearful that it might prevent the prophecy, carefully excises the soul fragment with a tiny lash of Fiendfyre- unaware that he was already the third step on the road of the Master of Death. *I do not own Harry Potter or the Harry Potter universe.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

 **"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."**

The prophecy that led to the deaths of the Potters was a simple thing, as prophecies go, with distinct references to the who and the how and outright stating of the what. In spite of this simplicity, or perhaps because of it, neither Albus Dumbledore nor Severus Snape outright questioned the completeness of its contents. This was not a failure of caution or intellect on their part per se, but rather a fundamental misunderstanding of how prophecies are made on the part of the wizarding world.

Seers, by and large, tend to live together in small conclaves, supporting one another by dutifully recording each of the others prophecies as they are made. By doing this they help keep all of their family members safe, as there are many situations in which a fake prophecy would benefit an unscrupulous party immensely... and hostages make fine bargaining pieces. It also allows them to gather young Seers to themselves, as 'The Gift' as they refer to it, calls each of them to the others, amplifying when they are together.

They also group together to guard the various studies they made over the years on the nature of prophecies. They do this with extreme levels of proficiency because it is, after all, quite difficult to steal from somebody who not only knows when you are coming, but also who you are, what you will look like at the time, and what path you plan to take. It is also quite difficult to catch and kidnap somebody who knows you will be coming for them before you do.

However, this shroud of secrecy created by the Seers regarding the nature of predicting the future was so long and successful that, at the time of the Potter prophecy, there were perhaps twenty people who even suspected that there _was_ a shroud of secrecy, and there were exactly five non-Seers worldwide who had distinct knowledge of _how_ prophecies work. Four of these people were immortal, whether by accident or design, and were deliberately chosen by the Seers as backup containers of some of the more important and specific prophecies regarding the end of the world and how exactly to avoid it for the perceivable future.

The fifth was a very quiet man who had the peculiar ability of reading the history of an object by touch and discovered the secret quite by accident, when he brushed a Seer while walking down the street. Unwilling to get his memory erased and with a rapidly growing core of paranoia, he resolved to bury the memory once and for all.

Somewhat ironically, this paranoia was the only thing that prevented his memory from being wiped, as the Seers discovered that he would have recovered his memory by reading his own history whenever he touched his own skin, and that he would be hit by a bus later that month anyway while running from people that he would (incorrectly) assume were following him to wipe his mind.

The primary reason for this secrecy surrounding the nature of prophecies was simple- prudence. If it was known in the wizarding world that Seers could produce prophecies on demand, people would get it in their heads that not only did _they_ deserve a prophecy for themselves, but that the prophecies they would get _should_ be good. Nobody wants to think their future is bad, and nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news, so when that news comes in the form of a notarized and accredited prophecy and the future really is bad, the bearers tend to wind up dead.

Another reason the Seers tended to keep their control over the prophecies secret was because of the rather metaphorical nature of most controlled prophecies. It was all well and good to go and get a controlled prophecy from a Seer, but when that prophecy ends up being something like 'If the owl crows like the rooster, the locust will glean the wet ashes' people tend to ask for their money back when the Seer can't answer questions like 'Who is the owl?' or 'What does gleaning the wet ashes mean?'. It also wouldn't help their image if it was discovered that the higher they were on hallucinogens or the drunker they were at the time of the prophecy, the more literal the prophecies were.

The Seers learned to take advantage of this though, by having each of the Seers in their conclave make a prophecy about the same thing at the same time while lightly smashed, so that they could pool the prophecies gathered and parse out what was actually going to happen.

Soon after the policy of secrecy was initiated, _uncontrolled_ prophecies (quite a bit rarer than controlled ones) became the only kind of prophecy heard by your everyday witch or wizard, as true prophecies, whether controlled or not, cannot be _Obliviated_ from the recipients memory.

Uncontrolled prophecies are very different from controlled prophecies.

Controlled prophecies are given very grudgingly by Time to Seers in things unrelated to the Seers immediate wellbeing, and are deliberately metaphorical and speculative due to 'forcing' Time to give them a piece of the future that does not belong to them. Uncontrolled prophecies, on the other hand, are Time screaming 'TELL SOMEONE THIS, THIS IS IMPORTANT' as loudly and literally as possible into the Seers' metaphorical ears. Because Time is screaming so loudly, and the prophecy is coming from the future towards the past, there is an incomplete 'echo' of the prophecy which happens one day _before_ the actual prophecy.

Normally, the other Seers would recognize the uncontrolled prophecy as exactly that due to the incomplete phrases and literal nature of what phrases were complete, and they would wait eagerly for the following day for the complete and whole prophecy. Sybill Trelawney, however, did not have these supporters when she gave the Potter prophecy.

Trelawney, quite taken in her youth by what she had read about her great-great-grandmothers' prophecies, worked extremely hard to 'refine' her inner sight, despite the fact that she had so little of 'The Gift' that she could not actually make a true controlled prophecy. Because of her lack of ability, she was passed over by Seers in the conclaves as a child and told to find occupation elsewhere. Her magic, however, did its best to mold itself to her wishes as she grew, expanding on her tiny shard of 'The Gift' and making her offhand predictions uncannily accurate, although her attempts at true prophecy were still uninspired at best.

Dumbledore and Snape, both totally unaware of the fact that actual prophecies tended to be a bit more complete than what they heard, decided that they had heard the whole prophecy and promptly acted on it. Dumbledore quickly left the interview in order to gather information on whoever had caught the first part of the prophecy, and Snape quickly went to Voldemort and relayed all he had heard. Trelawney , when told by Dumbledore at the abrupt end of her interview that she had made a true prophecy, was so excited that she didn't think to go to the conclaves and report it. She skipped home, happy with newfound confidence in her gift and a new job.

The next day, in the privacy of her own apartment and slightly high from her celebratory bowl of mushrooms, Sybill Trelawney finished her first true prophecy:

 **"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. He is born to those who have thrice defied him in battle, born as the seventh month dies under the sign of the lion. As his birth sign the Nemean he will have an impenetrable hide, one part from his mother, one part torn from his enemy, one part forged by his guardian and one part quenched in the flames of the everlasting bird of flame. The Dark Lord will hear this and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, a flame of life and death and magic forged by that flame, ever growing and living in balance. Eventually, the Dark Lord will seek him out and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The Dark Lord that dipped himself in the Styx six times to avoid death will nearly lose his grip on shore during the seventh, and the boy will gain all the other had in payment for pulling him to the edge."**

So passed the first true prophecy of Sybill Trelawney, unheard and unrecorded.


	2. Chapter 1: Albus's Mistake

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Lily Potter was panicking.

From the sounds of battle downstairs, James was managing to hold the bastard off so far, but that couldn't hold on forever.

 _'We need to escape.'_ She thought desperately. _'How?'_

Now with a problem before her, her incredible mind kicked into overdrive.

 _'Apparation? No, wards. Portkey? No, wards. Broom? On first floor, unavailable.'_ She glanced around the room, noting the window, _'Jump? No, broken legs means no running. Rope? Nothing to tie together.'_

Hearing the spellfire from downstairs end followed by a peal of high, cold laughter and a thump, she almost lost herself in the sudden grief at James' death. Tears pouring down her face, she shook it off a moment later, reordering her thought in favor of survival planning.

 _'Escape is impossible and the Avada cannot be blocked.'_ She evaluated furiously, reaching into her past for anything at all to save Harry and herself.

 _'Arithmancy, useless. Potions, no time. Astronomy, useless. DADA, limited use- we'll die anyway. Herbology, useless. History, useless. Transfiguration-'_ Her thoughts cut off for a half-second as she wheeled and transfigured the door into another section of wall and reinforced it to resist spells with a quick charm. She quickly picked up her thoughts again.

 _'Transfiguration, usless. Charms, useless. Runes…' Her thoughts shuddered to a halt. 'Runes can do what other magics cannot. Rituals can go even further. The Avada cannot be blocked, but maybe it can be absorbed?'_

She stepped forward and raised her wand, then paused. _'The most powerful ritual I know that absorbs magic changes the nature of the recipient's magic to that of the absorbed magic, so that a person might be able to manipulate that kind of magic wandlessly and with far more strength than usual. It absorbs three spells that must be of increasing power, and it has an upper limit for the power of the spell it can absorb, but that is only because there is no framework for the absorption.'_

Focused beyond anything she had ever experienced before, she totally missed the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs as she flicked her wand rapidly, burning the runic circle for the ritual onto the floor around the cradle. She quickly hid it behind a simple Notice-Me-Not charm.

 _'Ok, the ritual is set up. How do I make a framework for the absorption?'_ She started to flick through ideas, searching for anything to solve the dilemma as she heard the other doors in the hall get blown open as the Dark Lord opened each room searching for her and Harry. Then epiphany struck.

It was a memory of her first DADA class, "…and you must always remember that magic is about intent, emotion, and knowledge. Cast a spell without intent, focused emotion, and knowledge, and you'll get sparks like you did at Ollivanders." Professor Swiget had said all those years ago, demonstrating the sparks. "Cast without focused emotion and knowledge but with intent, and you'll get sometimes get a spell to work, sometimes not. Cast without focused emotion but with knowledge and intent and you'll get a spell to work, but only if it is a normal spell." Here he had leaned forwards and spoken with deadly seriousness, "All of the greatest magics ever created throughout the ages were made from focused intent on what the creator wanted to happen, focused emotion towards wanting the spell to work, and a deep knowledge of how magics similar to it worked."

She knew how runes worked on a deeply intuitive level. She had an incredibly focused intent to protect her son. She loved her son with everything she had and was emotionally invested in him surviving at all costs to herself.

She had everything she needed to produce a new magic. So Lily decided to go with her instincts.

Stepping forward and licking her finger, she placed a sowilo rune on Harry's forehead in saliva, symbolizing that he was the most important thing of her world, as the sun was of the earth. He was to be the one receiving the all the benefit and none of the cost.

She put an algiz on the base of his throat symbolizing life, and an inverted algiz symbolizing death on her own throat. He was to live and she was to die.

She wrote a gebo and an ansuz, symbolizing 'gifts of the gods', on her wand hand. All her magic and life would go to him.

She then, carefully, placed a hagalaz symbolizing tempering and controlling a crisis, and a perthro symbolizing the magics to be controlled on his sternum, right over his magical core.

She placed her wand over her own inverted algiz rune and linked it to his algiz.

 _'That's it.'_ She thought, relaxing the tiniest bit despite the monster blowing open the last door and uttering a sound of confusion before laughing at her deception, _'I have done everything I can for him. I have nothing left but one thing to do.'_

She turned to face the wall where the door once was just as it exploded inward.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" She begged the madman before her.

"Stand aside you silly girl… stand aside now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!" She hated the thought of abasing herself before this cruel, vindictive, _utter wanker!_ She nearly rolled her eyes at the ass. _'But if this will save Harry…'_

"This is my last warning-"

"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy… Not Harry! Not Harry! Please- I'll do anything…"

" _Avada-_ "

Suddenly a strange thought popped into Lily's mind _'I wonder if Harry will know that I didn't even try to fight back? Will he realize that I was saving my magic for him?'_

" _-Kedavera!_ "

There was a flash of green, and everything went dark.

* * *

Rituals usually are very carefully thought out and planned, and even more carefully executed for the simple reason that magic does not always act in a logical manner. This is also the reason that runic circles for rituals are typically drawn by hand without magic- to prevent even the smallest of errors from occurring due to improper memorization or visualization.

Lily was sufficiently motivated that she managed to transcribe a complex ritual circle in seconds from only her own memory, which was quite impressive.

However when she tacked on the new invention and placed her runes on young Harry, she inadvertently failed to account for what was to happen to what remained of her magic after the ritual, i.e. what was left over from the 'framework' she was trying to build to absorb the Avada she was sure would come.

Most rituals have candles in a circle or braziers set to the side of the room to allow the magic to flare up the flames- an altogether harmless (though impressive looking) form of burning off excess energy.

This error is completely understandable, as she didn't have time for anything other than gut instinct.

So, when Lily died her magic went to Harry and rapidly formed a reinforced a framework for the three spells to come, spending a little over half her magic to make it incredibly powerful. The rest of her magic, with no instructions on what to do, remained within Harry. Harry had no way of getting rid of it. His infant binding, intended to reduce the incidents of accidental magic every toddler experiences, started to buckle under the strain of holding up nearly a thousand times the amount of magic it was meant to.

He became, for lack of a better word, supercharged by Lily's magic.

The binding couldn't stay that way for long, nor would Harry be able to hold the magic in after the binding failed, however it didn't need to last very long.

Five seconds later, Voldemort cast an Avada directly at Harry. It was the first spell Harry absorbed.

It was a top level curse intended to kill a person or destroy and object with a pulse of greenish lightning, cast by one of the most powerful wizards in the world and one whose control and ability to get the most for his magic with this particular curse was undeniable.

It was perfectly shaped and carefully executed in an attempt to make sure that Harry died properly.

As the tip of the curse reached Harry, it managed to punch a tiny hole in the infant binding before it was sucked up by the framework. The framework had no trouble supporting the curse as the Avada didn't effect peoples' magic or soul, only their life.

Lily's magic on the other hand, suddenly seeing a hole through which to escape its' overpressurized vessel, converted into all manner of direct effect curses identical or similar to the Avada, like Reducto, Stupify, Diffindo, Confringo amongst hundreds of others, many of which were undiscovered and unnamed.

These spells met Voldemort and promptly disintegrated him before carrying on their merry way, blowing out most of the side of the house and then one whole side of the wards as they continued on.

* * *

Albus Pervical Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was confused.

This was not a situation in which he normally found himself, and he was nearly at a loss as to what he should (or could) do to rectify it in this case, despite Fawkes singing softly in an effort to calm his nerves.

The better part of two years ago, Dumbledore had heard the prophecy from Sybill and quickly determined that it probably referred to one of two boys soon to be born into the families of the Order of the Phoenix. Acting on that, he had asked the Longbottoms and the Potters to go into hiding under the Fidelius. Unaware of the prophecy, but still believing that he knew best, they consented.

He hadn't agreed with either of their choices for secret-keeper, thinking that both families should have chosen more powerful and intelligent guardians, but who was he to choose whom they should trust? He himself had at one time deemed Gellert Grindewald trustworthy, and if that wasn't a black mark on his record of friends he didn't know what was.

After nine months, the babies were born and he (privately) breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that Tom would have wanted to nip the problem in the bud and that the person who heard the start of the prophecy must not have been a Death Eater.

A full year went by after that and he felt reassured in their choice of secret-keepers by the fact that there had been no attacks, or even attempts at attacks, on the two hidden families.

By this time the Longbottoms, tired of their self-imposed house arrest, had informed him that they would be rejoining the auror squads. Lily on the other hand had managed to convince James to stay for another six months before venturing out from under the Fidelius.

Dumbledore, having heard no news from within the Death Eaters regarding the prophecy and somewhat abashed by the fact that nothing had happened even remotely close to the Potters or Longbottoms, had removed the 'quick call' function from the wards on both houses. Rings and other items can only hold so much enchantment, and removing two portkey 'quick call' functions from the Order of the Phoenix rings had opened up space for a few other desperately needed enchantments.

At the time, it had seemed like a good idea.

Then, three months later, when his alarm charms had gone off warning him as to an ongoing attack at the Potter residence, it hadn't seemed like such a good idea.

He had watched in silence helplessly not two hours ago, as the well-being indicators on James and Lily went dead in quick succession, and then he watched Harrys', waiting for the worst.

Then his monitors had gone bananas.

Unlike the rapid and efficient tunneling through the standard wards that had indicated Tom's work, the second set of damage affecting the wards had seemingly blown them to flinders in a truly massive burst of power in concert with a strange fluctuation in Harrys' well-being indicator.

Albus had _never_ seen his wards blown through by sheer strength before and, if he was to be totally honest, that kind of power had scared him quite a bit.

Sure that it was a mistake, he had quickly reset the monitoring instruments. He was shocked to see that the 'unwanted intruder' alarm was now silent, and that Harry was still alive.

Feeling more than a little trepidation at the thought of going near a sight of such magical might, he had summoned Hagrid to his office and given him a portkey directly to the Potter home. He had hoped that any residual magic from that explosion would slough off the half-giant like the vast majority of curses would. After instructing him to bring Harry back with him, he had called Poppy up and told her to prepare for a full diagnostic of an infant, including dark curses and ritual effects.

As she wanted to know why she would be doing a diagnostic normally reserved for aurors on an infant, he had told her of the Potters fate and had further explained that he had absolutely no idea what had happened to Voldemort, but that the boy was still living.

She had left at a run to prepare, and he had made his way down to the great hall to await Hagrids' return.

He had welcomed Hagrid and the tiny bundle of Harry an hour and a half later (that wondrous motorbike Hagrid borrowed from Sirius seemed quite fast), and had promptly escorted them to the infirmary.

Poppy had then examined the boy for about twenty minutes and informed him that, besides a strange imbalance in Harry's magic which was probably caused by the infant binding on his magic from breaking under the strain of the curse that had struck him, there was only some 'residual dark magic' in the curse-burned scar on his forehead.

He had asked her to leave and then he performed a cursory check of his own, which became much more in-depth when he realized that Tom had left a _piece of his soul_ in Harry's scar, thereby turning young Harry into a horcrux.

This is what led to Fawkes singing on his shoulder to calm him as he evaluated his current dilemma.

Obviously Tom must not have died, because nobody as smart as Tom was would create a horcrux in anything less than a perfect, undisturbed, environment if they were not absolutely sure that they could do it. Tom must have made _at least_ one more beforehand, even if only in practice for Harry.

On top of that, the prophecy could clearly only refer to Harry now because, according to the reports sweeping in from his spies, Voldemort was somehow miraculously vanquished when he went to the Potter's and thus could not mark anyone else, so Harry might be the only one who _could_ be marked.

Did he dare try to remove the soul fragment?

The ritual found in ' _Magicks Most Myghtee_ ' used to destroy a horcrux, the only book he owned which specifically addressed horcruxes, would completely destroy the soul or soul pieces contained within it and thus could not be used if Harry was to live. Basilisk venom wasn't an option for the same reason, and just plain cutting it out was impossible because it was magically bonded to its container (Harry) and would thus follow the main mass of the item if pieces were removed from the whole.

Using a dementor to suck the fragment out was impossible as it would suck poor Harry's soul right up with it, and using the Avada to assault and shatter the material bonds of the fragment could well kill Harry outright.

Fiendfyre was the only thing that he could think of that would allow him to remove the fragment without risking obliterating Harry utterly, but that would leave gaping holes in Harry's soul where it met Tom's. The holes would probably destroy his life, making him unable to find love or happiness or anger, just emptiness.

There was a good reason Fiendfyre was considered a Dark magic, even if it was highly useful for destroying otherwise indestructible objects.

Did he destroy the future and soul of a child for the greater good by removing the fragment? Or could he just protect Harry from its influence and steer him into using the fragment?

It was clear that the fragment must be removed if Harry was to fulfill his destiny as it seemed to have been spoken, leaving Harry free to find the 'power the Dark Lord knows not'. Clearly the greater good demanded that he ignore Harry's well-being and remove the fragment.

But if it were left alone…

It wouldn't possess Harry if he was protected by blood wards, and he could then be steered to fight Tom with unique insights into his mind and personality (and possibly memories) as well as pieces of Tom's powers, like his incredible talent for Legilimency or perhaps his Parseltongue. Insights and memories that, perhaps, even Tom would 'know not'. He could even spend the time between now and when the boy would be attending Hogwarts to try and develop a ritual to remove the fragment safely.

 _'No.'_ Dumbledore abruptly thought, shaking his head as he made a decision that would change the shape of history. _'I need to spend my time moving to try and end as much support for Tom as I can now that he is gone for the moment. If I leave it be to try and help Harry the courts will let people like Lucius Malfoy off when they bribe the judges. I don't have time to develop a ritual, so I must remove it now for the greater good.'_

Fawkes stopped singing.

At that moment and unbeknownst to Dumbledore, the familiar bond between Fawkes and himself that he had taken for granted for so many years shattered under the strain of yet another decision made 'for the greater good' rather than for what he knew to be right.

"Sorry Harry, but it is for the greater good. _Silencio._ " Dumbledore said to the sleeping child. Hopefully silencing the area would prevent the screaming of the Fiendfyre from attracting unwanted attention.

Dumbledore nodded to himself. He would do it quickly and smoothly, in hopes that having only one slightly larger hole in Harry's soul would allow little Harry to eventually rebuild. If he went slowly, there would be dozens of smaller holes from where he would overshoot Tom's soul piece and pierce Harry's.

It was the difference between a sieve and a bucket with a hole in it: the bucket might be repaired to hold water once again, but a sieve of the same size would require much more work to let it hold water.

Taking a breath to focus himself, he continued.

" _Morsfyr!_ " Dumbledore incanted, calling a tiny and angrily hissing snake of the black-edged Fiendfyre flames at the end at the end of the Elder Wand.

Moving swiftly, he excised the fragment with one smooth movement and quenched the Fiendfyre with another flick of his wand.

This was the second spell Harry absorbed.

It was a black-edged flame that could burn all things in creation into ash but that which was already fire, cast by the (commonly accepted) most powerful wizard in the world, while he held the Elder Wand.

There was little doubt that it was quite a bit more powerful than the Avada cast by Voldemort.

It wasn't common knowledge, but Fiendfyre could evaporate the Avada just like any other magics thrown at it. Anybody crazy and skilled enough to try using Fiendfyre as a shield could indeed 'block' the Avada. Of course, anybody that crazy and skilled should be avoided at all costs anyway, and the 'shield' would just as easily turn around and eat the wielder if they made even the slightest mistake.

The flame, upon touching Harry, was sucked up by the framework. The framework had quite a bit more trouble supporting the cursed flame as it could burn both soul and magic, and it started to fail.

Seeing the boy-who-would-be-his-partner starting to die before him at the hand of a man who he no longer wanted, Fawkes acted.

With a squawk resounding with betrayal, disappointment, and determination thrown at the Headmaster, Fawkes landed on Harry's chest and exploded into flame- burning to ash in seconds.

This was the third 'spell' Harry absorbed.

Fawkes was a fire phoenix, one of the most magical of creatures alongside unicorns and the fey, a magical beast that was mostly magic and only a little bit flesh. Fire phoenixes are, at their most basic, a pure flame, rimmed in white. They are magic of rebirth, purity, healing, and freedom of the skies rolled up with a material form.

Fawkes, abandoning his material form, dove into the third 'spell' slot in order to save his new partner. Being made of pure fire. Fawkes was able to contain the Fiendfyre with little effort and, being a creature of healing, the framework was rapidly repaired.

In the outside world, Dumbledore moved to check the damage caused by 'his' phoenix had done and was shocked to find that not only were there no burns from Fawkes' little explosion but also that Harry's forehead was unblemished, either by Tom's curse or the Fiendfyre.

Digging through the pile of ashes now on top of Harry, Dumbledore quickly realized that Fawkes' usual featherless 'chicklet' was nowhere to be found. A few minutes later, after chanting a series of diagnostic spells, Dumbledore was again totally confused.

The spells told him that Harry was both a phoenix and a human, which was clearly impossible. The spells said that his soul was whole and undamaged, and that it had never been damaged in the first place. That wasn't strictly impossible as the Fiendfyre _might_ have not damaged Harry's soul in any way by sheer coincidence, but it was unlikely enough as to be the same thing. The spells also said that his magic core was now growing far too rapidly for it to be natural.

Albus, suddenly made aware of his own ignorance regarding 'power the Dark Lord knows not' by this series of inexplicable events and, knowing that he needed all of his attention dedicated to hunting down and eradicating the remains of Tom's organization, decided to resort to one of his oldest and most trusted tactics- dump the problem on Nicolas Flamel.


	3. Chapter 2: Aftermath and Decisions

**Chapter 2**

* * *

"…and then I did a scan to check Harry's core and I found out that his core was impossibly large and growing at a speed I find quite unusual. If it keeps up like this he'll be as powerful as nineteen or twenty normal adults at two years old! That means that he could start training in magic as soon as he can understand the concepts- he could be the equivalent of an entering first year by four years old and be getting his NEWTs by eleven! Can you imagine it Nicolas? By the time the other children are going into their first year, he could be starting his _masteries_!" Dumbledore gushed in an oddly exuberant and rapid speech that seemed most out of place on the old man.

"I see you have still retained your exuberance for discovering new things Albus." Flamel said wryly. He took a sip of his tea as he eyed the hundred year old man, who was nearly vibrating on his chair with the thought of something new to research.

"You look almost the same as you did eighty years ago, when you told me that you discovered that dragons blood was never properly investigated but that it had some 'interesting properties'." Flamel quoted calmly, "As I recall, you blew up two labs before you calmed down enough to go about your research in a methodical fashion."

Dumbledore, now calmer after the subtle chastisement, took a deep breath and relaxed from his unconsciously tense posture. He nudged his teacup with a finger with clear chagrin and nodded a thanks at Flamel sheepishly.

"Sorry Nicolas. I still lose myself in my research, but usually my Occlumency lets me keep my excitement internal. I've just been off balance for a few hours now trying to figure out what happened at the Potters as well as juggling everything that needs to be done now that Tom has been removed from the field. Add on top of that both my new knowledge that Tom has stooped so low as to make _multiple_ horcruxes and my curiosity regarding young Harry here and phoenixes in general…" Dumbledore breathed a sigh, "…and before I knew it my mind was in shambles and I didn't even realize it."

Flamel silently took another sip of tea.

Dumbledore straightened his shoulders. "I won't let it happen again sir."

"Good." Flamel said, shooting an odd look at his not-so-young-anymore protégé. "You should not try and keep all that to yourself Albus. Friends are there to support you with things like this."

"I…" Dumbledore paused for a long moment, dropping his gaze to the floor as the twinkle within seemed to die. "…I haven't had many friends since Gellert sir."

There was a long pause as Flamel examined Dumbledore, before he placed his cup down and turned in his chair to more directly face the aging Headmaster.

"You count both Filius Flitwick and Minerva McGonagall among your friends do you not?"

"Yes, I consider Filius and Minerva to be good friends." Dumbledore stated after a short pause.

"Good." replied Flamel, "Why did you not go speak to them?"

"They are both busy." Dumbledore replied with a frown, "Filius is working on modifying the Fidelius. He's trying to allow the secret-keeper the ability to live under a Fidelius as well without both of them destabilizing. Minerva helps with organizing a resistance group I lead called the Order of the Phoenix. She's busy at the moment revamping escape plans since the Potter home is no longer safe."

"And you think that their work so important that it cannot wait for ten minutes while you tell them your story?" Flamel asked calmly, "Or you think they 'unwilling' to help you carry this burden?"

"No." Dumbledore said quietly, "I just thought it best that the prophecy and current situation be concealed as best it can be."

"Then you think they are too open and honest to keep a secret? Or do you perhaps believe them to be spies for the enemy?"

"No!" Dumbledore nearly shouted, "I just-"

"Tell them Albus." Flamel interrupted with finality, finally turning back away and picking up his own tea again. "Swear them to secrecy if you must, but I think you shall find them more than willing to help and, indeed, happy to do so."

Silence reigned in the homely little kitchen for a few moments before Dumbledore finally took up his own tea and drank it all at once.

"Well then I need to be off." Dumbledore said, "I'll be back in hopefully a week or two to speak with you again. I have so much to do with the remaining Death Eaters- it would almost have been easier if Tom was still active."

Dumbledore took out his special key and placed it in the door, still nattering on about 'all he had to do' even as he turned the key twice and the door opened to reveal the Headmasters' office at Hogwarts. Dumbledore was about to step through when a quiet voice stopped him and cut off the rambling monologue.

"Albus?" Flamel said quietly.

"Yes sir?"

"I was in your shoes once, long ago. My friends were dying left and right around me and I was the only one who had the power to stand up to the darkness." Dumbledore grimaced at this.

It certainly sounded similar to the whole 'Dumbledore is the most powerful sorcerer on Earth! He's the only one You-Know-Who is afraid of!' rumor that seemed to be accepted as fact.

"Talking to friends helped."

Dumbledore nodded at this as he turned again to go.

"Albus?"

"Yes?"

"Tell Filius that it is not the charm, it is what secret is chosen which causes the destabilization. With two people working together, one can have an unbreakable Fidelius."

"Yes sir." Dumbledore said, eyes again twinkling madly as he walked out and closed the door behind him. There was a sound of two clicks, and then the door vanished, leaving behind a blank stone wall.

"Hmmm" Flamel said, leaning back in his seat with his tea and pondering his most recent apprentices' problems and overall situation.

A few moments later, he heard a tiny noise from the floor and looked around the table to see what it was. A giant basket with what looked like a fifteen month old child fast asleep within.

"Damn. He forgot the kid." Nicolas froze as his mind kicked into overdrive for a few seconds as he noted several inconsistencies in Albus's usual behavior. Some of those turns of phrase were just a bit odd… and when was the last time Albus called him sir…

' _Son of a bitch_!' He thought, a smile spreading across his face as the pieces came together.

He took another sip of tea.

 _'He told me that story in that excitable way of his in order to get me focused on his Occlumency and friends instead of the kid!'_ Nicolas chuckled quietly. _'I've been had!'_

 _'I shall finish my tea before investigating.'_ Flamel thought, his excitement starting to stir as he went over what Albus had told him about the boy.

* * *

Finally holding the last cup of tea from his current pot, Flamel walked over to the basket and lifted it up onto the table with his left hand, choosing not to set down his last spot of tea.

"Let's see just why Albus is so interested in giving you to me shall we Harry?" Flamel said as he waved his teacup airily over the sleeping boy.

He frowned, then tried it again. He grimaced and shook his head. He drained the dregs of the tea, then put down the cup and waved his bare hand over Harry.

Interest now fully piqued and muttering dark imputations about how using the Elder Wand was cheating, Nicolas walked across the room and opened a small chest. He drew forth five items: an aging wand, a tiny silver bowl, an oddly shaped quill and accompanying oddly shaped inkwell, and a set of goggles with totally black lenses. As he tromped back over to Harry, he snagged some loose parchment from an end table.

"Don't worry kid," Nicolas murmured as he placed the items next to the basket and picked up the wand. "I'll do right by you even if you aren't mine to keep."

" _Somnus._ " He said with a flick toward Harry with the wand. He then grabbed the boy's hand and positioned it carefully over the bowl. Stabbing all the way through Harrys' hand abruptly with the quill, he let the blood fall into the silver bowl.

" _Episkey_." Nicolas said several seconds later, sealing the wound with another flick. He quickly poured a small amount of ink from the odd inkwell into the miniature bowl, now filled with a decent amount of blood, and mixed it with the oddly shaped stabbing-quill.

Nicolas took the quill and balanced it on its' point above the first piece of parchment, leaving it after a moment. It stayed balanced, trembling slightly.

"I'm looking for magical contracts referring to him or including him in its terms, not including Ministry decrees and the like." He began. The quill exploded into motion, already starting to write.

"Just list the names and purpose and where they can be found, full text isn't necessary. I'm also looking for unclaimed bloodlines or lordships or connections to noble houses he is or will be eligible for, as well as the name of his current magical guardian." Nicolas turned away and picked up the goggles.

"If you need extra parchment, tap the bowl repeatedly to get my attention." He finished, slipping the goggles onto his forehead.

He picked up his wand, slid the goggles down and tapped their edge and said, "Start Magic viewing. Show magic less than twenty-four hours old. Remove medical magic from view." He looked down and waved his wand over the sleeping boy.

"What the hell?" Nicolas said, looking around and only able to see a blinding white light wherever he looked.

"Remove curses from view?" Nicolas almost asked.

 _'Ah, good.'_ He thought as the wash of white vanished, leaving only a few runic magics glowing.

"Whoa." Nicolas breathed, letting out a low whistle of appreciation as he read the fading magic and started to realize what incredible precision, power, and creation speed was involved in the runic magics he could see. "If what Albus said about was right, your mom was one talented witch."

 _'The primary ritual looks pretty old.'_ Nicolas mused, examining the slowly fading runic magic circle hovering some two feet below the boy's feet with interest. _'I saw this done once before in the seventeen hundreds. 'Kolme… something' was its' name. It absorbed three magics of middling strength at the cost of 'tuning' the subjects' magic core to take on the nature of the absorbed spells. It made casting and controlling those three spells with just willpower possible, but the 'tuned' magic was unusable by exterior foci like wands.'_

Nicolas frowned, then tapped the side of the goggles saying, "Switch to Core Evaluation"

The boy's core looked stable, so the ritual must have been finished and the three spells absorbed must be balancing one another like they should. The absorbed spells were probably some from that massive amount of curses he had seen…

 _'How is this kid still alive? Or even in one piece?'_ Nicolas suddenly asked himself, pushing up one lens to make sure that the kid _was_ actually there and _was_ , in fact, still alive. _'If he got hit by all those curses… It must have been an accidental magic shield, but I'll make sure just in case.'_

"Switch to Magic viewing. Show all magic." Nicolas smiled as the white glare came back. "View only outbound magic."

 _'I've got you now.'_ Nicolas thought in the instant before he realized that he still could see the white glare instead of the overly powerful accidental magic shield he expected to see.

 _'Wait, what?'_ He thought as his mind ground to a halt when his latest theory crumbled.

He could have understood if the kid had made an accidental magic shield and reflected a few hundred curses- it would have been amazing, but within the realms of possibility since deflecting spells takes less effort than actually casting them. However that wasn't what happened.

The kid, barely fifteen months old, had put out so much magic in the form of curses that he literally couldn't see anything other than maxed-out magic.

Nicolas paused, lost in thought for a moment. Then he shrugged.

 _'Might as well try the other direction then.'_ He thought, tapping the side of the goggles and murmuring, "View inbound magics only."

Nicolas looked for a few minutes in silence at the few magics directly affecting the kid he could now see, trying to piece the story together from the fading remains of magic. When he finally found a sequence that made sense and compared it to what Albus had said, he burst into laughter at the sheer luck of the kid.

"Nicolas, what is going on?" Perenelle, his wonderful wife, asked as she entered the room to see him laughing and wearing his alchemy goggles.

"'Nelle," He said with a grin, taking off his goggles and sweeping his arm at the boy, "You are currently in the presence of the person I believe to be the single luckiest guy on the planet. Harry James Potter."

She looked at the boy with curiosity evident in her eyes, which quickly turned into concern as she spied the still-writing bloodline quill.

"Nicolas!" She scolded quietly, watching the boy to make sure her rant didn't wake him, "What have I told you about how to treat children?"

"I'm to treat them like adults." Nicolas sighed and rolled his eyes, "But 'Nelle, this one was left with me by Albus on purpose and I needed to figure out his magical guardian to deliver him to them! And besides, kids never understand me when I tell them about Alchemy! They're snotty and messy and-"

"Nicolas Jacques Flamel!" She said hotly, making Nicolas quail under her clearly growing anger.

"You will tell me what is going on with this child right now!"

Nicolas started speaking rapidly in a confession-like release of information, trying to assuage her.

"The kid was given to me by Albus with an implied request for me to figure out what happened to him. I learned that there were exactly five inbound magics: a ritual to absorb curses and spells, an unknown runic magic involving something like trading a life for life, an Avada, a Fiendfyre Dumbledore cast, and lastly a phoenix converting to magic and diving into the kid."

"A phoenix?" She interrupted in surprise, "What kind?"

"Fire." He answered, "And it's fused to him now, but I'll get to that part in a second."

"Ok, go on." She commanded. Nicolas nodded and continued.

"The kids' mother had seen the end coming and had decided to try and save her kid by absorbing the Avada. Good idea, but the ritual would have been overpowered and destroyed. She seemed to know that, so she pumped him full of her own life and magic with a nifty little runic ritual I haven't seen before and told it to hold out at all costs."

"The kid got blasted by an Avada like the mom thought and the ritual sucked it in, where the moms' magic pinned it down long enough for the ritual to integrate it properly. That's fine, that was what it was supposed to do, but then the real luck happened."

"The leftovers of mom's magic, unable to stay in the kid for too long had said 'so long' and skedaddled. From what Albus said, it blew up his enemy on the way out through blind luck."

"So now the childs' enemy was dead, and he was partway through a ritual?" Perenelle asked, clarifying.

"Yeah, the Kolme…" Nicolas thought for a few seconds and then snapped his fingers as he finally remembered the name, "The Kolme Imeytyminen ritual. After that Albus picked him up and, again by sheer luck, chose to order a auror post-mission scan instead of a normal scan. The auror one only uses passive tests in order to avoid triggering curses or spells that may be attached to the auror. The normal active scans would have triggered a failure in the ritual due to an included 'must be a stronger magic each time' requirement which _might_ have killed him when the Avada got loose all at once."

"But that didn't happen and Albus eventually learned about the piece of soul that had been blasted into the kid along with the Avada. Albus decided to remove it and coincidentally used one of the very few spells in the world more powerful than an Avada- Fiendfyre. That meant that the kid then had two of the three magics required for the ritual in proper ascending order of power."

"The Fiendfyre probably started to eat away at the containment magic of the ritual and the kid would've been doomed to burn from the inside out except for the fact that an unattached fire phoenix was there. A fire phoenix was perhaps the only thing that could prevent the kid from dying by both completing the ritual with a stronger 'magic' than the Fiendfyre as well as being a magic capable of containing the Fiendfyre."

"He's lucky that it was there, and that it was unattached, and that he was good and pure enough for the phoenix to want to help, which it did by fusing with him."

There was silence for a moment as Perenelle digested the deluge of information. After a few moments her eyes narrowed dangerously and Nicolas gulped with uncertainty.

"And you thought that this boy's family dying and him being assaulted by someone during an attempted murder was funny why?"

"No, no." Nicolas quickly backtracked, "The chain of events required for this kid to survive, let alone coming out of it ahead as he did, required incomprehensibly, ridiculously, earth-shatteringly massive quantities of luck. I thought it was neat that the kid _was_ that lucky, so I laughed at the near-impossibility of the whole situation."

"Nicolas!" Perenelle said sharply, making him straighten in alarm.

"You need to calm down from your 'researcher mode'. Right now you are as bad as Albus was when he found out about dragon blood."

Nicolas froze, and then looked around the kitchen, which was now strewn with parchment and his various artifacts. He sat down heavily in his previously forgotten chair with a groan at himself.

"I talked to Albus about this not fifteen minutes ago too." Flamel said, pinching the bridge of his nose and reordering his thoughts while raising his Occlumency shields once again.

"Sorry about that love."

"I love you for it." Perenelle said with a smile, "I find your 'researcher mode' quite adorable, but I just do not want you taking it out on the child."

Flamel nodded, then moved to the basket and lifted it off the table.

"Where do you want to put him to bed?" He asked, much calmer now.

Perenelle Flamel smiled, happy her husband wanted to keep her happy, even if he didn't understand her foibles himself.

"Put him in Albus's old room dear, under the covers. Then you come back here and help me sort through all this," She gestured to the piles of parchment, "to figure out what we are going to do with him."

* * *

"So in summary," Flamel began, shuffling some of the papers around as he gathered up the most important ones, "He is only bound by one non-government magical contract at the moment, but it is only the one held by the goblins for each noble house that has their own vault. He won't be able to sign it to gain total access to the Potter House vaults himself until he claims the Potter Lordship, but he will be able to get an item or two early if they are mentioned in the will."

"He will need to sign several similar arrangements if he claims the Gaunt and Slytherin House Lordships and vaults that he- or more probably his mother- won by right of conquest, but the Peverell House Lordship was unclaimed for too long and the goblin contract lapsed. They closed the vault and sold off the contents, meaning that if he claims the lordship he will receive only gold of equal value to what was in the vault instead of an actual vault with non-monetary items within. It is no great loss to his assets since most of the books and artifacts sold were probably hopelessly out-of date and destroyed by lack of proper care anyway."

"Because he _is_ the Peverell heir, the Elder Wand and other Hallows actually belongs to him, although he might still need to fight Albus for mastery of the wand. If that is the case, it becomes a little bit of a sticky situation since Albus is his current magical guardian. Fortunately the guardianship is only Albus's until the reading of the Potter will, and only due to his position as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The current holder of that position is the automatically designated magical guardian of all new orphans ' _in loco parentis'_ until the reading of their parents wills."

Flamel leaned back in his chair, sighing as he did so. Rocking back onto two legs, he crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling as he mused about the boys' future.

"'Nelle?"

"Yes Nicolas?" Perenelle asked.

Flamel paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"I think the child will have problems, magically." He stated slowly, "And I am not sure that whomever the Potters designated as his guardians will be capable of even understanding his problems, let alone helping him to solve them. Nor am I sure that they will be able to help him learn to control his powers."

"You are referring to the powers he gained from the ritual?" She asked, having heard a small additional explanation regarding the specifics of the Kolme Imeytyminen ritual while they sorted the papers.

Flamel nodded.

"I think the phoenix will protect him while he learns to control the Fiendfyre and I am sure that it will help him learn the phoenixes power, so even if they are his most powerful traits, I am not too worried about those two. However a fire beast does not understand lightning. The lightning of the Avada is too powerful for him to figure out by trial and error without a proper guide; he would have troubles and would probably end up hurting or killing someone."

"Beyond that, the spells he is tuned into are so powerful that they have completely changed his magical core into themselves rather than just a part of the core since he wasn't yet full-grown when the ritual happened. The Kolme isn't a ritual made for use by a magical minor, and he was lucky that he even _had_ enough magic to power both the Avada and the Fiendfyre at his age. He was also lucky that the phoenix brought its own magic along, as his core didn't have anything left to support that load."

 _'That's probably what caused his core growth to kick into overdrive.'_ Nicolas realized in a moment of clarity as he spoke, _'The influx of magic fusing onto his core from the phoenix jumpstarted it to powerful adult levels while he was still in the core generation stage. It starts at the end of the initial core kernel creation that takes place from birth to one year and doubles each month until two years. His magic is busily trying to 'double' his new, impossibly large core. The fact that it is failing miserably just makes his body strain even harder, trying to finish the doublings it thinks it needs.'_

He suddenly understood how the kid had slept through everything that had been thrown at him for the last few hours.

 _'No wonder the kid is asleep- he's in the process of running a magical ultra-marathon without ever having learned to run before. He'll probably sleep until he hits two years old and the rapid growth period stops.'_

Nicolas smiled at the thought before Flamel shook his thoughts and growing excitement out of his head and returned to the conversation.

"Because his core is now completely tuned, his magic will have its tune shifted to one of the three spells no matter how much it grows, and it will keep that same ratio as he grows. When he eventually goes to Hogwarts, he will have a devil of a time casting using a wand because he has no 'normal'" Flamel made quotation fingers at this, "magic. He will need to learn how to alter his magics' tune back to normal, to 'untune' it if you will, before he will even be able to _think_ about using a wand." Flamel ran a hand through his grey-streaked brown hair, concerned by the enormity of Harry's future problems.

"Even if he eventually learns how to untune his magic back to normal on his own, it will cost him a fortune in incinerated and destroyed wands to do so since he wouldn't know where to start since he didn't have any normal magic to begin with. He will be so far behind the other students by the time he figures it out that it would be pointless for him to go to Hogwarts at all; except for the social experience perhaps."

Flamel stopped, seemingly finished with his explanation of the problems facing the young child. There was a pause as Perenelle looked at Nicolas speculatively.

"You want to train him." She said quietly.

It wasn't a question.

"Yes 'Nelle." Flamel said, nodding seriously. "I think that unlike all the others whom I have taught, this boy actually _needs_ to learn Alchemy. As you know, the most basic form of Alchemy is essentially infusing ones' magic into a potion and altering its 'tune' repeatedly in order to draw out different effects from the potion. You cannot use a wand for it. I think it is the perfect match for him."

"And even if he can't learn how to use a wand after learning basic Alchemy," Nicolas started in a panicked rush as Perenelle opened her mouth to speak, "He should still learn Advanced Alchemy to add a bit more variety in both life and battle beyond his current options of 'kill and maim' or 'do nothing'."

Speeding his argument up, Nicolas continued, "Alchemy will give him non-lethal combat options and will open other available career options for him besides 'hired killer' and 'on the Ministry dole'. He should be able to use basic Alchemy control to use the phoenix flames without the other two, so he'll probably be able to become a healer as well if he wants to. And he'll be able to create and sell Alchemy-only potions and tools like these googles." He gestured slightly wildly to the blacked out lenses.

"And he'll be able to teach Potions far better than the average potion master, since he'll intuitively understand _why_ some ingredient combinations won't work. And he'll be able to do research and… and…"

Nicolas ground to a halt and dropped his gaze to the table as he realized he didn't have anything else to say. A soft hand gently placed itself on his arm and he jumped.

"I was going to say yes Nicolas."

"Oh." Replied Flamel dumbly, "That's good then."


	4. Chapter 3: Harrys' new Soul

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Harry didn't think the man with the green lightning was funny anymore.

Harry thought it was a pretend game when Mom come in acting weird and had talked at the door-smashing man and then looked scared, but now she was on the floor and Harry didn't think she was okay and if it was a game then he didn't like it.

Harry looked up at the lightning man and his smile was _wrongwrongwrong_ and he pointed the lightning stick and Harry started to cry and then screamed as the bad mans' green lightning made his head hurt a whole bunch before everything went fuzzy and black.

Then he was standing on a grassy field with some small hills.

Harry looked around and noticed a big black rock stuck in the ground to one side of the field surrounded by a large circle of bare earth. He noticed a bit of crackling green lightning that flitted through the hip-high grass, disappearing periodically in a flash and crack like lightning normally did.

Harry started to take a step towards the black rock to investigate but he stopped when he realized that he could _feel_ the dirt and grass he was stepping on like he _was_ that grass and earth, which was weird because he knew he wasn't grass or dirt. Harry could tell that the grass and dirt was _his_ , even though he hadn't seen it before.

After another moment Harry realized he could also feel the green lightning just like the grass, so it was _his_ green lightning and not the bad mans' green lightning. Harry could tell that the black rock wasn't _his_ since it didn't seem to like him very much and it seemed very much like the bad man somehow.

Harry decided to stay away from it.

The green lightning came over to Harry when it finally noticed him standing there and seemed to enjoy twisting about his fingers like a snake. Harry thought it acted a little like the puppies he had seen that that one day Mom and Dad had taken him to the pet store. It seemed to love running around and crackling away and back suddenly, which Harry thought must be like how the puppies had barked in excitement.

After a while of watching the lightning flit around happily, Harry wondered why the lightning felt so happy. It sent back a feeling of always being happy but that it was lonely because nobody ever played with it before, even though many people called it up over the years.

Harry thought that was pretty mean of them to not ever stay around and play, but he understood that sometimes old people had 'obligations' and they couldn't stay to play.

Harry thought that they could play fetch but there wasn't a stick. Suddenly there was a stick, materialized just as if Harry had asked for it, and he threw it for the green lightning. It crackled after the stick and brought it back excited at the new game so Harry threw it again. Harry kept throwing for what seemed like a long time since they were both having fun even if Harry was still a little worried about his Mom and the bad man.

* * *

After a while, Harry lay down, tired at the game of fetch. The lightning quickly came and lay down next to Harry too, acting tired even though Harry knew it wasn't.

"What's your name anyway?" Harry asked, speaking for the first time since he had arrived in the field.

It sent back that everybody else said its' name was Abracadabra.

"That's too long." Harry said, frowning. "How about 'Crackle'? Lightning crackles and you are made of lightning."

Crackle thought it was a great name and zoomed around for a bit in happiness before flopping down beside Harry again.

Harry scratched Crackle automatically as he looked up into the overcast sky and wondered where he was and what had happened.

* * *

After another long time, Harry saw a black-edged flame come shooting down towards the field through the clouds. It was clearly only edged in black, with a red and orange center just like a normal fire. It didn't look very safe, so Harry picked up Crackle and ran away from where it was going to hit.

When it landed it made a big noise and Harry saw that it blew up the bad mans' black rock. Harry saw that it had also made a little hole all the way through the field, showing that underneath the dirt was a black emptiness.

Unlike how Crackle was _his_ , Harry could tell that the black-edged flames weren't _his_ , and he also knew that unlike Crackle they could talk in words instead of just feelings.

"BURN!" They shouted in a bunch of voices at once that seemed happy. The grass started to burn beneath the onslaught of fiery creatures which didn't concern Harry too much, even if it was _his_ grass, but then the black flames started to burn up the dirt as well and Harry felt the loss as an agonizing feeling of pain. Wherever the black-edged flames went they burned away the land as well as the grass.

Crackle hummed with tension like the electric lines did and sparked a little as he let off feelings of wanting to protect Harry since Harry was Harry and not one of the people who went poof.

Harry thought that the fire was happy when it should be scared since the hole in the field started to make the field tilt toward the hole like a funnel and if Harry hadn't been holding on to the grass then he and Crackle could have fallen in. Harry instinctively knew that falling in was bad but the black-edged flames didn't seem to worry about it even though the dirt and grass was falling in faster and faster as the hole got bigger and Harry kept feeling worse and worse pain.

The flames got closer to where Harry was dangling from the grass and Harry closed his eyes in hopes of waking up from what he was now sure was a nightmare when something calm and pure and good washed over him.

He opened his eyes and saw a pretty hawk-bird that was made of white fire beating back the black-edged flames with waves of more white fire. The black-edged flames were now yelling "Burn!" in a much unhappier and confused fashion, and Harry felt a little bad for the flames that just wanted to burn stuff and couldn't… even if they wanted to burn him and they hurt him by burning his grass and land.

As the black-edged flames rolled back before the sudden onslaught of white fire the hole in Harrys' field shrank and the grass grew back and the field started to go flat again instead of tilted like a funnel.

Harry abruptly realized that the firebird and the white fire were both _his_ and that the black-edged flames seemed to be _his_ now too.

After a few more seconds, the hole was gone and the black-edged flames were levitated above the ground in front of the firebird, while the white fire that regrew the grass and filled in the hole spread out and mixed through the grass without burning it.

The field seemed to be burning in heatless white flames, but the grass didn't blacken or wither.

"Burn burn burn!" The black flames insisted, trying to reach for the ground.

"No!" Harry shouted.

Something intangible seemed to shift in the air and the black-edged flames were forced to stop by a blue wall. They quickly started to burn through the wall until they were forced back by white flames which repaired the damage to the wall.

The black flames reared back for a moment, seemingly shocked at being forced to stop and listen.

"No burn?" The many black flames asked in a tone that indicated pure horror as they stretched out again and burned a little of the wall away again, this time in a testing manner. The wall was promptly repaired by the white flames.

"Only burn what I say." Harry commanded, "You're mine and you can't burn my stuff like Crackle and the ground because it hurts when you burn the wrong stuff. I'll tell you when you can burn stuff."

"Burn some?" The black flames asked hopefully.

"You can burn the grass." Harry responded with a nod. "That doesn't hurt when you burn it." A feeling of an agreement made flowed from the black-edged flames and something intangible shifted in the air again as the blue wall vanished.

The black flames quickly reached down and spread happily over the grass, incinerating it but not making a hole in the ground. After a few moments the green grass was all gone but it was replaced by a nearly illusory tall grass made of the black-edged flames. The black-edged flame-grass and white flames danced and entwined with happiness across the field. Harry thought the field still looked strangely good covered in black and white flames instead of grass.

"Burn later?" The black flames asked uncertainly.

"Yeah." Harry responded with another nod, "I'll find more stuff for you to burn later."

Harry let go of Crackle, who promptly proceeded to zoom about, chasing after some of the higher black flames that vanished whenever Crackle got too close.

A feeling of laughter came from the new illusory flaming grass as it baited Crackle to and fro. Harry nodded at the play-like situation sagely, even though he had only a faint idea of what had just happened.

"Well," Harry spun about as he heard the new voice and saw the white fire hawk, "That was one way to deal with the problem."

Harry thought the firebird sounded impressed.

"They weren't a problem." Harry said hotly, a bit defensive over his new flame friends, "They want to burn stuff and I just had to tell them that they can't burn stuff like the dirt 'cause it hurts."

The firebird landed on the ground in front of Harry and the flames shifted aside to provide an empty area for his landing. He looked at Harry with something like disbelief.

"So your first thought when confronted by a group of sentient flames was that they just needed to be told what the rules were?" He asked with incredulity.

"They only wanted to burn stuff." Harry repeated, looking down a bit sheepishly. The firebird shook its head in disbelieving wonder before squawking in surprise.

"Where are my manners?" The phoenix asked, dipping its' head politely, "I am Ateritsiputeritsi, a phoenix of the North Eastern Mountains."

"Ah-te-rit-" Harry started to repeat with a look of concentration on his face. He stopped and shook his head.

"That's too hard and too long. You look like a hawk and you're made of fire so I'll just call you Fawkes." He nodded happily.

"NOOOOOO!" screamed the bird in despair, "I can't accept this! It's impossible! I finally get the opportunity to get called by my real name after all those years and I get paired to another person who thinks like Dumbledore! GOD DAMN IT!"

"Who's Dumbledore?" Harry asked, not fazed by the birds' verbal explosion.

"He was my previous partner." The re-rechristened Fawkes groaned, "He broke our bond and I needed another. You were there and needed me, so I decided on you."

"I'm beginning to regret that decision." The bird added with a bit of a glare at Harry.

"Well I'm sorry!" Harry said, crossing his arms in disagreement, "But since I'm only one and three months old you can't expect me to remember something like Ateritsiputeritsi as a name!"

"You said it! You said it!" Crowed Fawkes in delight, taking off and circling Harrys' head happily. "Ha-HAA! I'll stay with you forever! I don't even mind if you call me Fawkes now! Somebody actually called me by my name!"

Harry looked thunderstruck. "How'd I say that? I can't talk like that normally and I don't know some of the words I'm saying."

"That's because we are inside your soul Harry." Fawkes said, landing on Harrys' shoulder and starting to preen happily. "Everything here is a visual representation of your emotions. The hills are long-term emotions like your love for your Mom and Dad, and the weather is short term emotions like your anger when you have to eat peas or your fear when the bad man hurt your Mom."

"In your case the grass was your magic, and if you were older you would have grown trees and bushes and other plants too." Fawkes explained, "The lightning over there and the black flames replaced it with themselves but they are still your magic. It's just a little different kind of magic now. I'm actually now part of your magic too, but I didn't replace any of it. We'll grow bigger just like your trees and bushes would have."

Harry thought about this.

"What does that have to do with how I'm talking like this?" He said, frowning.

"Ah, that would be because you always say what you mean in here, even if you don't know how to say it." Fawkes continued, a bit more subdued. "You ARE your own magic and soul, and you can't misunderstand yourself. Your magic and soul IS you and we ARE it, so we are also you."

"Normally people don't go inside their own soul, since there isn't much you can do in here without messing yourself up badly. Usually people only come here while meditating to find their animal forms so they can learn to transform into them. If they did come here more often, they would discover this to be a good place to meditate on life-changing decisions, since you can't lie to yourself here."

There was a minute of silence as Harry digested this too.

"Why am I here if it's so rare to come here?" Harry asked shrewdly. He was sure that it had something to do with the black rock from earlier.

"I don't know." Fawkes replied, "But I am surprised to see you in a human shape."

"Well, what other shape would I be in?" Harry asked, confused.

"Well you'd be an animal of course!" Fawkes said with a caw of laughter. "You see an animagus form…"

* * *

"…and that's why soul, mind, and body are the accepted divisions of the whole in the magical world." Fawkes finished triumphantly.

Harry nodded in mindless agreement, long since having tuned the overly talkative bird out.

Harry thought it was nice having someone to talk to since he had a sinking feeling he wouldn't be coming out of where he was anytime soon, but the chatty bird had been without a companion who could actually talk to for so long that he just didn't know when to stop. The conversation had somehow meandered through topics from animagus forms to transfiguration to something Harry couldn't remember because he fell asleep to the nature of magic to something else Harry couldn't remember because he was playing with the black fire and Crackle and back to animagus forms.

Fawkes took another breath at the end of a sentence.

"The black fire-" "Chathuga! _ ******_ " Harry interrupted triumphantly, happy to have something to say after what seemed like (and probably was) hours of conversation.

"What?" Fawkes asked, his train of thought thrown off the rails by the interjection.

"Cha-thoo-ga. That's the black fires' name. I just decided. Dad told me a story about a living fire and that's what it was called so that's what I'm gonna name them."

The black grass-flames froze in their play with Crackle as they evaluated their name before they started wriggling around faster in happiness and agreement towards their new name.

Fawkes paused, eyeing the flames with something like disbelief before deciding to not question a good thing.

"Right then!" He said, leaping over the mental roadblock and starting again, "…Chathuga… gained a body when it fused with you by sharing yours and a mind, or self-awareness if you prefer, in the same way. It uses part of your mind that isn't in-use for processing power. It realizes that it cannot survive without you now and will probably defend its' existence by destroying anything it determines is a threat to you and, thus, to it."

"Crackle is much the same as Chathuga, but it seems to have received a lower amount of intelligence for some reason… possibly the nature of the starting spell?" Fawkes finished on a musing question before shaking off the thought.

"I, on the other hand," Fawkes stretched his wings out pompously, "was a fire phoenix. I was a magical beast with full sapience before I abandoned my physical body to join you. I am your partner, although I now share your body. I still have my own mind contained in my magic so I am not limited by your tiny human intelligence."

"Our magics have all replaced or fused with yours, meaning we all share the same soul now. All of us will do what you want us to, however we do have our own personalities and will. Crackles and Chathuga are actually quite dangerous, Crackles through ignorance and Chathuga through arsonist tendencies. If you don't want to them to accidently hurt anybody you should make sure they know how to behave and what not to do in the real world."

"I enjoy healing people and purifying evil objects, so if you don't want my white flames to reach out and do so then you should say so. I also have a couple of other powers that you will need to learn how to access yourself including 'flashing' from one place to another in a curl of flame and soothing the minds of others with a special magical song, neither of which I can do any longer since I am not in control of our body."

Harry sat down and started playing with the tiny wisps of flame that licked around his fingers playfully.

"That sounds pretty easy." He said, looking over towards Fawkes, "Mom told me not to worry that I couldn't do magic yet because it was hard, but magic sounds really easy- I just tell you guys what to do and you do it."

"Err..." Fawkes said, stumbling over the misconception. "No, not really. More like learning to walk again. Magic acts like a totally new and unused body part so it will be really hard to do at first. We'll do what we want with precision, but for you to control your magic directly you'll need to practice quite a bit. Finesse and precision will take even longer to master."

"So," Harry began, "If you do something because you want to it'll be easy, but if I try something it will be hard but get easier later on?"

"Exactly!" Fawkes exclaimed proudly, "I taught that well didn't I?"

"If it's so easy for you to do it, why don't I just ask you to do it then?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Hmmm…I thought we went over this?" Fawkes said, slightly chagrined, "You would need to be deeply meditating to communicate with us in your soul directly, which is not something you'll be able to do often in the real world. If you aren't meditating we can feel your emotions like fear and anger and attempt to act accordingly, but actually doing something consciously would be like a game of Chinese whispers- or Telephone. We wouldn't know if you were angry at the person next to you, or if you were angry at the situation, or if you were angry just because you were having a bad day."

"Not having enough control could result in you destroying something you didn't mean to destroy or destroying something you meant to fix." Fawkes shook his head, "No, you'll want to practice a lot before you try to use magic on anything you don't want to destroy whatever you are trying to use magic on with Crackles' explosive power, Chathugas' annihilating flames, or my purifying fire."

"The good news is that you're going to be, and currently are, very powerful magically, so you should be able to practice all day long without exhausting yourself, unlike the majority of witches and wizards. The constant practice will allow you to close any gap in control you may have compared to others through hard work."

"Sounds difficult." Harry said with a frown, turning back to his play with Chathuga and Crackle.

"Yes Harry," Fawkes said too quietly for the boy to hear, "But sometimes the hardest things are worth doing the most."

* * *

 _ ******_ Author Note: 'Chathuga' is an attempt by Harry at saying Cthugha, from the Cthulhu Mythos (no, the elder gods do not actually exist in this universe- it's still fiction in this universe)

* * *

Writing 'down' in terms of mental aspects is quite difficult for me. I can write believable external actions by childish people but writing the thoughts of a child are quite difficult to write when you don't know how a child actually thinks. I don't remember my thoughts from when I was a very young kid, so I'm kind of shooting in the dark.

You may notice that later in the chapter Harrys' thoughts spike towards a higher mental age level with less run-ons and more classically correct writing- this is intentional and it was done for two reasons, one in-story and one practical.

In-story, the increase in Harrys' magic from Fawkes fusing with him pushed his mind and body to catch up thereby increasing his mental acuity.

Practically, I didn't want to keep writing 'down' as much as I did for the 'normal' 1y 3m old Harry at the beginning because I'd never get it done and would probably just abandon the whole thing in frustration.


	5. Chapter 4: Nicolas and (Un)Control

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Flamel waved his wand over the kid again.

It had been nearly nine months since Harry had arrived, and Flamel was getting a little restless.

He had spent two _agonizing_ weeks, starting from the day after Albus dropped the kid off, wading through the morass of red tape and pointless forms that surrounded the guardianship and administration of Harry and the finances of House Potter. The paperwork for the guardianship wasn't that complicated, but the lines of people filing paperwork to either adopt or act as guardian for young Harry were literally out the door and around the corner of the entrance to the Ministry.

Unlike all the others trying to claim Harry however, Flamel had the backing of Harrys' actual magical and legal guardian as stated by the Potter will, Sirius Black, to add weight to his claims. Sirius Black had nearly been framed two days after the Potters' deaths for the murder of Peter Pettigrew, and he had only escaped due to some very fast legal motions filed by Albus to get him a trial.

After Sirius requested Veritaserum (which wouldn't have been granted if not for Albus pushing the Wizengamot very hard) and proved himself innocent, Albus managed to guilt-trip him into giving up legal custody of Harry to the Flamels on the grounds that when he ran off on a quest for vengeance rather than caring for Harry he proved he wasn't parent material. That wouldn't have been enough to convince Sirius by itself, but the Longbottom attack happened that same day, and the vicious nature and horrible outcome of that attack proved even to Sirius that finding adequate protection for Harry was paramount.

Sirius had grudgingly agreed with Albus that Flamel must have the best security measures around since he had successfully kept the Philosophers Stone from the grasp of thieves and various Dark Lords for over six hundred years. Sirius had accordingly signed off on the housing and legal guardianship of Harry, however he outright refused to give up the magical guardianship of Harry since he wanted to be able to visit from time to time.

After that was settled, Flamel claimed and carefully invested the bounties on Voldemort and the monetary gifts that were starting to trickle into the Potter vaults into several ailing domestic businesses, knowing that most of them would 'bounce back' since the war was over. Flamel left the main Potter investments alone for the most part, but he did shuffle the majority of the loose money in the vaults into leisure businesses like vacation companies and international portkey makers, realizing that going on vacation to celebrate was going to be popular in the coming months and years.

Flamel had arrived home proudly after the end of the two weeks with Sirius in tow, only to discover that his initial fears of Harry sleeping until the core generation stage ended were being fulfilled.

Sirius had been nearly beside himself until he learned that Flamel had expected this and had a regimen of potions already started to help Harry maintain muscle tone, stay well-nourished, and to aid in the growth of his core.

After a week and a half of prowling around the Flamels' home and surrounding lands (which were a lot more extensive than one at first assumed), Sirius said his goodbyes and left, asking to be contacted when Harry woke up.

Flamel had picked up several contemporary texts on advanced magic control and Alchemy during his two-week paperwork run and he started working through them as well as his main collection, designing a preliminary plan for teaching Harry control for his abnormal magic and how to change it back to normal magic so he could use a wand.

After several days, he was off to his Alchemy lab, wanting to work while Harry was asleep since he figured that he was as prepared as he was going to get for training Harry.

Perenelle disagreed.

She grabbed him by the ear and sat him right back down, telling him to create a whole curriculum for Harry. She told him to include everything that he wanted in an apprentice for Alchemy, since Harry was going to have to learn it anyway sooner or later anyway and 'Why not make him a master?'.

So he sat back down and wrote out a comprehensive, week by week education for Harry, lasting for five years and including Basic and Advanced Alchemy, Astronomy, Arithmancy, Potions, Potions Ingredients (locating, retrieval, and preparation), Runes, and a subject he decided to name 'Surviving Life' that consisted of a weird blend of DADA, Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures' more dangerous and widespread threats, wards and how to break them, breaking curses, rituals, a heap of situational awareness training, and how to analyze unknown threats.

It took Flamel nearly a month to pare down the books he thought should be read to the bare minimum so as to not overwhelm Harry, and he took another month to plan out the lessons. When he finally stood up and stretched, thinking he could finally get back to his Alchemy experiments, Perenelle had swooped in and demanded he sit with the kid to keep him company. Knowing that that was one argument he wouldn't win, he conceded the point but wrangled a compromise out of Perenelle that she would take over the Astronomy, Arithmancy, Runes, and aid in the situational awareness training of the curriculum so that he could keep doing research even while the kid was being trained in the basics.

With six empty months on his hands, Flamel decided to do his best to spend that time wisely.

He re-read all of his more advanced Alchemy books and thought up several experiments he hadn't tried yet. He spent some time brushing up on rituals and then he spent some time refreshing on the basics of each of the subjects to be taught.

He took a day off from watching the kid and went to Gringotts to get his own investment statements, after which he redesigned his whole investment scheme from the ground up. It wasn't necessary, but he did expect about a one percent increase in yearly return.

Eventually though, he ran out of 'normal' things to do and started on the wacky and strange.

He contacted one Xenophilius Lovegood and offered his services to try and create a special set of goggles to allow people to see Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Nargles, and Wrackspurts. He was turned down with, 'They don't hide, so it isn't fair to go around seeing them all over the place now is it?'.

He offered to let Albus take (one of) his Philosophers Stone(s- except nobody knew it was plural except for Perenelle and him) so that Albus could 'keep it safe'. Actually it was to see what his apprentice would actually DO with the stone once he had it. Unfortunately, Albus declared he was too busy making sure the Death Eater trials were fair and just and he couldn't take time to protect the Stone too.

He floo'ed a few old acquaintances and asked if he could borrow copies of the latest edition of each of their respective governments' classified combat and espionage spellbooks. He received, surprisingly enough, no less than eighteen countries worth of classified material including the Americans and the Soviet Unions', and he received thirty countries worth of non-classified material (the eighteen did overlap some with the thirty though).

He posted a reward of ten thousand galleons to anyone who could produce a memory or proof of successfully meeting and escaping from a six 'X' creature. He really didn't think anyone was that desperate for money, but he was willing to see if they were. He didn't honestly think that anyone would be dumb enough to try and go up against the _thing_ living in Russia that had leveled everything within fifteen miles the last time it got pouty. Similarly Jormungand, or 'Leviathan', would be pretty hard to encounter given that it was sleeping under a couple of hundred billion tons of ice at the South Pole and nobody wanted to wake it up. The last time somebody tried, Atlantis had sunk.

No, Flamel figured that the Jabberwock was the most likely of the three prizes to be claimed, however he thought it would still be pretty hard to do. The Jabberwock produces a low murmur that drives people insane within seconds, is totally immune to any known magic, is capable of phasing in and out of reality at will and has a gaze that causes people to literally burst into flame; regardless of whether or not they saw it. Any one of those would qualify the possessor for an honorable mention in the 'crazily dangerous' category of magical creature texts and together they were terrifying, but the scale on which the Jabberwock operated was a bit more manageable than the 'world-crushing horrors' that the other two were. Dangerous? Yes. Destroy all life on the plane if angered? No.

And even if they discovered a new, horrible monster that warranted the six X rating instead of one of the three known ones, Flamel figured that it was always good to have as much knowledge as possible about horrible monstrosities living nearby that could obliterate your planet.

In spite of all these attempts at distractions, Flamel was getting restless.

 _'Maybe one or two more days'_ Flamel thought with hopefulness, _'It will probably be sooner since from what I could tell his core was-'_

Flamels' thought was cut off in shock as the boy in front of him suddenly exploded into black-edged flame which began to disintegrate the bed rapidly.

" _Mobilicorpus_." Flamel said hastily, jabbing with his wand. "Perenelle please come put out this fire, I'm a little busy at the moment."

The now naked boy quickly lifted off the now-burning bed frame where there used to be a mattress and hung suspended in the air. Flamel quickly walked over to the exterior door and threw it open, directing the still-sleeping and flaming boy out into the open.

Behind him, Flamel could hear Perenelle putting out the fire with a series of water spells. He stood, holding the boy up, while he waited for Perenelle. After a few moments, she joined him outside looking at the boy.

"I haven't seen that before." She commented dryly, looking at the boy as the flames continued to increase in intensity and size. Flamel just nodded and directed Harry a bit higher and further away as the grass started to wither from the heat.

"When do you think he'll wake up?" Perenelle asked softly, "That really looks like Fiendfyre to me and if you put him down he'll burn or melt right through the ground."

"I don't know 'Nelle." Nicolas said as his brain restarted from his shock. He started watching the boy like a hawk and carefully moving him further away and higher up as the heat increased even more, "Since he's burning like this now, it means his magic is no longer trying to grow as fast as possible and so he has extra magic, which is burning off like we see. Normally the extra magic burning off wouldn't do anything because it would just flow around everyone and it would eventually be contained as the kid learned rudimentary control over their magic, but normally it would be much less extra magic anyway. Harry is powerful and his magic, including his extra magic, just so happens to be extremely dangerous."

"I-" Nicolas began.

"Hello?" Interrupted Harry, "Who's there?"

* * *

Harry lay back in the flame-grass musing about what had become of his life over the time (he still wasn't sure that time flowed quite right in here) of being somehow trapped in his own soul.

Crackle was just as happy as it had been at the start of Harrys' exile, but it had picked up the odd tendency to combine with the animal shapes that Chathuga made regularly, stabilizing the shape. It was very interesting according to Fawkes, but Harry apparently didn't have the grounding to understand what was so special about it. It was magic after all. Shouldn't it be easy to do interesting things?

Harry personally thought that the best looking (especially with the lighting rolling down the sides) and most useful shape was that of an Eastern dragon-serpent. It seemed big enough to ride on (Harry was looking forward to trying that when he eventually got out), it was long enough that it could coil around him to protect him from all sides, and best of all it could fly.

Chathuga on the other hand had mellowed from the violent arsonist that had originally dropped into Harrys' soul into merely a pyromaniac. It had picked up a whole series of alternate hobbies it wanted to try out with its flames besides 'disintegrate everything as fast as possible', including toasting, roasting, frying, and grilling.

Fawkes, after long period of near-constant talking, finally calmed down from his ecstasy at having someone to talk to and became far more companionable. He even started telling Harry stories about the things that he had seen in his long years (inadvertently giving Harry a far better grasp of history, politics, and tactics).

Harry had probably changed the most out of all of them though.

He had, under Fawkes directions, successfully performed a mental meditation from _within_ his soul. It wasn't the first time anybody had done it before, but according to 'The Great and Knowledgeable Fawkes' nobody did it because it was far harder to execute than a normal mental meditation and it didn't do anything special.

After practicing his ability to meditate, he had worked to create avatars for the three others to use inside his mind as well as his soul. He discovered that he didn't have to create avatars for Crackle and Chathuga, but only let them out of the well hidden and powerful mental blocks his mind had automatically placed around them as a defense.

Fawkes had been surprised at that Harry had to create an avatar for him when he didn't for the others, but Harry pointed out that he was the only one of the three who didn't actually use part of Harrys' mind to maintain his own.

After that was sorted out, Fawkes told Harry to start building an 'Occulomancy' fortress since intelligent people like to attack you where you are undefended, and lots of normal people don't defend their minds. Fawkes gave Harry a vague impression of Hogwarts (the school of magic that he was going to attend) so that he knew just how a real castle looked, and Harry set to work.

With the other threes' help, Harry managed to build a castle similar to Hogwarts, except that it was made of (and surrounded by a moat of) Chathugas' flame and covered by storm clouds that rained the green lightning of Crackle down periodically. Needless to say, Harry thought that the outside of the castle would be a not-nice place to be for attackers.

The inside was a study a lot like James Potters' at Godrics' Hollow, where Fawkes and Harry carefully looked through his memories and sorted them by subject. Harry hadn't seen the point of the sorting, but Fawkes said it would help him remember important things faster when he got older. After they were finished they reentered Harrys' soul, since it was much easier to play with one another there.

They had played and played, and Harry had found himself thinking faster and more clearly as the mental castle settled in as a permanent fixture. Harry could only imagine how hard it would have been to create the castle if he was working alone and had to create the stones for the castle from scratch instead of from Chatugas' fire. It would probably have been even harder if he didn't have somebody right there telling him what he was doing wrong and how to fix it.

After many days (if there were days in his soul) Harry had found himself here, laying back in the flame-grass and musing about his life.

" _Mob…cor…s_..." A voice said from nowhere suddenly, startling Harry out of his musings. "…nelle …lease … fire, I'm … busy ….ment."

The voice seemed to fade in and out, almost like he was hearing it from underwater.

"You're starting to wake up Harry!" Fawkes said excitedly, "Go towards the light when it shows up!"

Harry nodded. Fawkes had been nothing but nice to him, and had given him good advice and stories. No way was he going to ignore the loyal bird.

"I ha…n't …een that before." Another voice commented dryly, finally fading in completely.

"I'll see you guys later then!" Harry said, quickly giving Crackle a goodby scratch and twirling some of Chathugas' flame around himself like a cloak.

"When do you think he'll wake up?" The second, womanlike voice asked softly, "That really looks like Fiendfyre to me and if you put him down he'll burn right through the ground."

"Fiendfyre?" Harry asked quickly, starting to feel himself getting lighter, like he was no longer connected solidly to the surface of his soul.

"Chathugas' fire." Fawkes said promptly. "Watch for that light now."

"I don't know 'Nelle." The man's voice said soberly. "Since he's burning like this now, it means his magic is no longer trying to grow as fast as possible and so he has extra magic, which is burning off like we see. Normally the extra magic burning off wouldn't do anything because it would just flow around everyone and it would eventually be contained as the kid learned rudimentary control over their magic, but normally it would be much less extra magic anyway."

Harry saw the light suddenly appear in the sky and jumped for it, flying upwards as though shot from a cannon. He felt himself start to slow, so he started 'swiming' upwards desperately.

"Harry is powerful…" The man continued, oblivious to Harrys' struggle to reach the surface, "…and his magic, including his extra magic, just so happens to be extremely dangerous."

Harry broke the surface of the light with a sudden gasp of air that was inaudible over the conversation and the sound of flames. He found himself facing a blue sky. He could move his body and by turning his head he discovered that he was floating, so he just didn't have any purchase to turn and face the voice.

I-" The male voice began.

"Hello?" Interrupted Harry, "Who's there?"

There was a pause as the voices stopped. Harry abruptly found himself stood upright in the air, facing the two people responsible for the voices.

One of them was a young man with an oddly old and grandfather-like air, with well-groomed brown hair framing sharp hazel eyes and a pensive look on his unlined face. The other was a young woman, similarly old-aired, with blond hair and brilliantly sapphire eyes which were watching him with something between glee and surprise. They seemed to both look _through_ Harry entirely, which Harry found quite disconcerting.

There was silence for another moment.

"…Ah," The man cleared his throat.

"My name is Nicolas Flamel." The man said with an odd, thoughtful tenor in his voice. "And this is my wife, Perenelle Flamel. We are going to be taking care of you for a while and we will be your teachers until you are ready for school."

"Well that's fine, but will you set me down please?" Harry asked somewhat petulantly. It was a distinctly odd feeling for Harry to be completely at the mercy of someone, since he had been THE master for all that time in his soul, and it was throwing him off terribly.

"No, I can't let you down until you learn how to control your flames. As you can see," Flamel gestured to the withered and smoking grass even as Harry closed his eyes in concentration, "If I set you down now you would burn your way right through the ground and you'd… probably…"

Flamels' phrase was left uncompleted as his jaw dropped open when the flames suddenly vanished from around the boys' body.

"So now can you set me down?" Harry asked happily, opening his eyes.

"I'm starting him early on Alchemy training." Nicolas declared to Perenelle with something halfway between glee and anticipation as he set Harry down and handed Harry a towel to cover himself. "There's no way I'm letting him sit around until he's five or six with that intelligence and talent."

"I knew Fawkes was having me on," Harry said, smiling as he contemplated learning magic early, "Magic is easy!"

* * *

"Magic is so HARD!" Harry yelled in frustration a month later, giving the newly melted cauldron remains a kick after it had melted like butter under a blowtorch. "I keep putting magic into the water but it just boils away and then the cauldron melts. How am I supposed to make fire 'not hot'?"

"Its' not that magic is hard Harry," Flamel said, grinning at the outburst as he sat back, levitating three balls over his head wandlessly and banishing the remains of the cauldron onto the scrap pile before summoning another from the house, which Harry started to fill with the pump. "It's that your magic is sort of instinctively destructive, and you will have to learn how to make it _not_ that way before I can teach you more."

"And how do I-" Harry paused as a thought crossed his mind.

 _'Chathuga wanted to try out other types of burning, but what about how flames lick things without burning them?' Harry thought, 'I saw Dad play with a candle by putting his hand through the flame one time, and I saw Uncle Padfoot reach into a fire to pull out some potatoes without getting burned.'_

Harry reached out a hand towards the small cauldron, licking tongues of flame through the side of the cauldron and through the water without harming either, almost illusion-like.

Flamel leaned forward, surprised at the sudden breakthrough. He had expected that it would take another month or two before Harry got it. He suddenly smiled the smile of a tiger that sees a juicy meal.

"I made the fire not hot!" Harry shouted, hugging Nicolas happily, "I made it lick without burning!"

"Very good Harry," Nicolas said with the smile of a hunter and a worryingly crazy tone. "Now you need to turn your 'lick' into a line of fire swimming about all by itself in the water, while having it still be cold. It's only a little bit harder than the last step."

Harry released the hug violently and started backing away in horror. Nicolas stood up and began advancing on Harry with an insane grin on his face.

"I'll make you my best apprentice yet if its' the last thing I do!"

* * *

"I did it!" Harry yelled three months later, running into the cabin dripping water everywhere. "I was just taking a bath and I figured it out! I know how to sustain it and control it without putting in magic all the time now!"

Perenelle absentmindedly dried up the water with a flick of her wand while Nicolas stood up and turned to Harry with another insanely happy look on his face.

"One more step to go!" Nicolas declared happily, "Make your fire into not fire magic, but water magic. It's only a little bit harder than the last step."

Harry paled as the man started cackling.

* * *

"I finally did it." Harry whispered a year later, watching a blue water-magic snake swim through the water of the cauldron. "I finally completed my first magical elemental transmutation."

 _'I should go tell…'_ Harry's mind froze with a jolt of adrenaline as he realized what he almost did.

 _'No,'_ Harry shook his head, _'I'll know Nicolas will come out of him and be scary if I tell him I did it faster than he thought again, so I'll just do the next step without telling him.'_

Harry nodded. That sounded like a plan. He opened his ancient alchemy textbook and looked up the next development stage.

"Multi-element transmutation is the next step. Expand your available elemental transmutations. E.G. If you did fire-to-water do water- to-fire as they are different, but related, transmutations. This will take a shorter period of time for each transmutation you finish, but there are many to finish to complete The Alchemist Circle."

 _'So next I am supposed to turn the water magic back into fire?'_ Harry thought unhappily. _'And then I'm supposed to discover the transmutations for earth and wind to and from fire and water too?'_

Harry shook his head. _'It had better take a LOT shorter time than the previous transmutation took to learn, or I'll be here until I'm all old like Flamel is.'_

 _'I'd better get to work.'_ Harry thought with a sigh, unaware of the fact that the old alchemy textbook Nicolas had given him for advice on the transmutation stage was written before multiple elemental transmutation mastery was reclassified from Basic to Advanced Alchemy.


	6. Chapter 5: Hopeless Myrrdin

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Flamel sank into the rocking chair and propped his feet up onto the veranda railing. He glanced at the now nearly four-year old Harry running through the field around the edge of the lake and chasing Padfoot, Sirius' dog form.

It was good for Harry to get out and play, even if it seemed like Harry took to academic pursuits with a delight and speed that was highly unusual for his age. Sirius wasn't good for much with regards to teaching Harry in magic, being terribly reliant on his wand like most wizards of this age, but he certainly managed to get Harry out and about with far less effort than anybody else could.

It wouldn't be a problem, except that Harry was too young for adult-style workouts and he was far more advanced mentally than normal. He loved to read and read and read some more, devouring anything and everything he got his hands on. Kids _needed_ to get out and rush about being kids in order to develop properly. Hard physical workouts purely for keeping fit were somewhat detrimental before the beginnings of puberty at ten or eleven as opposed to running about and playing outside.

The alchemy practice had gotten Harry up and about, but it had petered off slightly in the last week or so after Harry announced that he had completed The Alchemists' Circle, which had delighted Nicolas until Harry admitted that he still hadn't managed to find the feel of 'untuned' magic, which had been the whole point of learning alchemy at such a young age to begin with.

The most basic alchemy uses elemental magic to alter the properties of potions or materials, allowing reactions and effects that normally wouldn't occur.

For example, in a hypothetical potion fire magic injected into it might enhance the 'explosiveness', making it work far faster than a normally brewed potion, while water magic might enhance the 'gentleness', making it fade into working slower and more evenly. Earth magic might increase the 'strength', making it more resistant to counter-effects, while wind magic might increase its 'flexibility', making it less likely to have bad reactions with other potions. Of course, these were just examples and the effects might be completely different or there might not be any effect at all.

As alchemists become more advanced, they learn which types of magic are most useful at which points during the creation process, allowing them to switch between types of magic to extract the effect from whatever components were involved. However this switching between elements takes a few moments of time in which the alchemist must switch back to untuned magic and then to the next element, which can cause whatever is being produced to decrease in effectiveness. To solve this, higher level alchemists learn to transform one element into another directly, with no delay, which allows nothing but the alchemists' own timing to decrease the effectiveness of whatever was being created.

To be able to transfer any of the elements into any of the others without crossing back into untuned magic is what is referred to as 'The Alchemists' Circle', and many master alchemists require their apprentices to complete the Circle before allowing them to even start applying for their masteries.

Flamel had hoped that while learning the transmutations of the Circle Harry would have stumbled upon untuned magic and would thus be able to begin using a wand by merely transmuting the right amount of untuned magic for his wand to use as he went, but unfortunately that hadn't happened.

He had been spending the last few days looking though books on alternative magical traditions and theories in order to find a way for Harry to make that last little jump from 'tuned' to 'untuned', but he hadn't had much success.

Sighing at that slightly depressing thought, Flamel shook his head at the antics of the boy and his godfather, setting his book for the day 'Power and Focus: Unbiased views on magic' onto his lap. Flamel re-opened it to chapter three.

 **Chapter 3: Magical Foci**

' **Magic is change' could be said to be a brief summary of chapter one, and 'Magic is everywhere, but some places moreso' could be said to adequately summarize chapter two. These two chapters contained the most current theories behind magic itself (Ch1) and sources of magic (Ch2). This chapter is different.**

 **Unlike the dry Arithmancy formulas defining the current view of magic laid out in chapter one or the careful and specific explanations of sources of magic including leyline maps, magical core diagrams, and the universal magical constant in chapter two, this chapter is merely an overview of magical foci. The reason for this is because magical foci are so widely varied as to be impossible to group together under any banner other than the obvious 'it is a magical focus'. So without further ado: Magical Foci.**

* * *

 **Due to the unique separation of the core and the body present in humans noted in chapter two, controlling magic is more difficult for humans than for the members of other magical peoples (goblins, centaurs, ect). Not extremely so, and this lack of natural control is balanced out by higher individual power, but it is more difficult all the same. True, there are some like Merlin who seem to breathe and manipulate magic totally naturally, but these exceptional individuals are extremely rare.**

 **Goblins and the other magical peoples can easily combine their efforts together to create more complex and powerful effects because of their innate ability to feel and control their magic, but truly powerful monocaster magics (e.g. Fidelius charm) are beyond them. Humans generally find they have plenty of individual power, yet they are incapable of even using the smallest amount of it in complex tasks due to being unable to feel their sectioned-off magic and having unfocused minds. In order to overcome this lack of control, humans developed the concept of a magical focus- something designed specifically in order to channel and focus raw magic like a lens for light.**

 **Myth says that the first artificial magical focus was discovered in an act of desperation. In legend, a man was watching his wife dying to blood-loss after giving birth when, in a flash of genius or insanity, he wrote the rune for 'heal' on her with blood (which was the only thing available to write with at the time) and pushed his magic into her with the intent to have the rune help keep his mind on task. To his surprise, the rune lit up and glowed blue with his magic, and his wife recovered her color and health rapidly. Later, he worked on discovering what had happened and supposedly found that runes written in human blood could naturally focus and boost the efficiency of magic.**

 **This legend, while interesting and possibly true, leaves open questions including 'Why do runes work to manipulate magic when Latin/Cyrillic/Greek letters do not?' and 'How are runes the first focus since blood is the focus for blood magic?'.**

 **The answer to the first question is 'We don't know'. Another legend, which is also plausible, says that the other magical peoples developed and magically linked the written language of runes to magic itself and taught it to our ancient ancestors out of pity for our inability to control magic. Certainly this is somewhat plausible, given the similarities found between runes and the various species archaic writings, although if this happened, it happened so long ago that any proper records of it have long since been destroyed.**

 **The second question brings up the concept of a** _ **natural**_ **focus, which is part of a creature or plant which naturally helps that magical creature boost and control its magic. A unicorns' horn is used by the unicorn species to channel its magic into healing, the dragons use their tongues to generate its tremendous fire, and demiguise use their hair to wrap the light around them and become invisible. Goblins and the other magical peoples do not have these natural foci, instead relying on sheer will as their 'focus'. This is part of the reason that we humans are somewhat ignored or looked down upon by most of the other sentient magical peoples.**

 **Since our blood is our natural focus (this is where the phrases 'my blood is singing' and 'my blood is burning' come from), they see us as being more magical animals than a magical people. Our ability to do magic through pure will when sufficiently motivated mitigates this somewhat, making them view our species somewhere along the lines of how wizards generally view squibs. We do not help our case for our 'peopledom' when we treat them like animals, since between the magical peoples they offer respect naturally and freely. We gained some regard from the older magical peoples when we continued to develop our own species magic, but we lost that respect rapidly when we banned the vast majority of our blood magic as being 'dark' in the eighth century. We will discuss the other magical peoples and their magics in more depth in chapter thirteen.**

 **After the discovery of runes, people began to link them together, developing the concept of runic clusters and eventually, full runic circles. These constructs must be constantly fed magic in order to function. As time went on, people started to develop efficient runic circles that were kept active by ambient magic. Eventually the runic circles (sometimes hybridized with other magics) were fed raw magic from various sources like a giant battery in order to do something far more difficult and complex- thus was born the art of rituals.**

 **Rituals were created during this period to take advantage and harness of the most primitive and primal of magics, from losing ones' virginity to murdering another human in cold blood. Sex and blood and magic and death are entwined in human magics recorded from this period, and they represent the first truly powerful magics ever created. After a few years, two distinct arts evolved from the concept of ritual magic: static and dynamic ritual magic.**

 **Static ritual magic grew from the idea that the magic must be done in a specific place (inside the runic circle) and took it to the next level. Giant works of stone and earth were carefully designed and located so as to harness and focus the massive power contained within the earth in the form of leylines and the power of the planets and stars. These monoliths were usually designed to be at full or partial power at several times during one year so that they could be used multiple times. Usually these dates corresponded to each equinox and solstice, but sometimes other dates like Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh were included. These permanent circles could be used by either runic rituals or (later) dynamic rituals to boost their power further, or merely as a site of power for other magics.**

 **Dynamic ritual magic, very unlike static ritual magic, grew from the concept that basic runes were merely symbols of emotions and power and thus could be changed into other forms. Dancing and singing became the core of dynamic ritual magic, the runes of a ritual symbolically represented by the movements and beat, allowing countless people to work together in a choreographed manner as the other magical peoples do naturally in a temporary ritual composed of flesh, life, and movement. This allowed truly dynamic and flexible rituals in which the full might of human emotions and magic could be safely harnessed and properly focused. In a very real sense, dynamic rituals are a group of humans self-harnessing their blood as a focus.**

 **People speak of being 'swept away by the crowd' or getting 'caught up in the moment', but the origin of those phrases lies with dynamic rituals and peoples' sense of self being swallowed up by the greater whole of the ritual. Even non-magical humans today can be 'swept up' in a mob mentality as emotions run high and their blood magic flares (although they don't have a core their blood is still a magical focus- a very bad one, wizard blood is far better).**

 **After these two versions of ritual magic were developed, static ritual magic went as its namesake (since the sites of power were already properly focused) while dynamic ritual magic evolved further.**

 **From the dancing aspect of the dynamic ritual grew 'gesture' magic, which shaped ones' own magic with gestures of the limbs and body, while the singing aspect grew 'chant' magic, which shaped the magic with lengthy chants and meditative focus. A (magical) martial artist shattering a large rock with a single finger gently touching it is one example of 'gesture' magic, while one example of 'chant' magic is the mantras of India. It was during this time that magic spread across the globe and the magical traditions in various areas began to diversify into the unique cultures we know today.**

 **India and China generally adopted the 'gesture' and 'chant' magics, producing the elementalists who would begin to develop the basics of alchemy and potion making. Southern Europe adopted and refined static ritual magic, creating truly powerful magics and artifacts, harnessing the stars and earth. Northern Europe adopted primarily basic runes and dynamic ritual magics due to their inability to move quickly and easily to the static circles if they were needed in the deep snows of winter, while the Mediterranean region focused mainly on refining blood magics and hereditary magics, eventually producing the prophet line of Delphi. Egypt focused on some of the more heinous aspects of blood magic in their search for true immortality, creating Inferi, vampirism, and developing the first wards based on blood and runes (in an attempt to guard their homes- which became their tombs).**

 **Years passed without much progress beyond creating and expanding more of the same traditions until eventually a new innovation appeared in Atlantis: the staff. Nobody knows how the first staff was made, but this is the popular story.**

* * *

 **Once upon a time an intelligent young man living in Atlantis by the name of Myrrdin decided to re-create the first magic. He was a farmer and he didn't really have the time or resources to do actual research into the subject, so he decided to just try anyway.**

 **He knew that the stone circles he occasionally saw from the top of the cliff behind his house when the weather was clear used the energy of the land, and he knew that some magics used chants and others used gestures to shape the magic. He tried to feel the magic of the earth at first to just control that power directly, but it was too slow and too deep for him to grasp.**

 **He was stumped, unable to proceed. Then a mysterious peddler asked to stay the night at Myrrdins' house. They traded stories and Myrrdin told the mysterious man of his desire to remake the first magic again. The peddler told Myrrdin that there was a rune to draw magic in; he told Myrrdin that it was used to draw power from the earth for the other runes.**

 **Myrrdin was amazed by this, and he quickly ran out and spent much of the evening carving the symbol many times over into a staff. When he awoke the next morning excited and full of energy, he tried his new creation, trying to draw energy from the earth again. It failed to draw so much as a spark of energy from the earth. Myrrdin quickly asked the peddler what he had done wrong.**

" **Magic calls to magic." The mysterious peddler said to youth as he walked away, "You should use magical wood." Of course, Myrrdin excitedly ran off into the nearby forest looking for 'magical wood'.**

 **After wandering in the forest for a full day, he tried to find his way out, but he discovered that he was lost. He slept in a tree in the forest that night (for there were wolves in the forest), waking in the morning to gather nuts and berries and killing a hare for meat. He wandered the rest of the day, trying every method he knew to escape from the forest as he ate more food from the rich bounty of the forest until it was again night. He slept in the forest again and awoke on the third day. As he hopped out of the tree that was his resting place that night, he unexpectedly fell upon a beautiful nude maiden.**

 **Tongue-tied by her beautifully startled look and quite embarrassed by the compromising position he had accidently forced her into, he got up and wordlessly helped her to her feet. They looked at each other for a timeless moment before Myrrdin opened his mouth to apologize.**

 **The maiden quickly halted him with one white finger on his lips.**

" **If you want something from me, handsome man, you must catch me first!" She said with a sultry smile in a voice that sent shivers down Myrrdins spine and straight to his loins. She turned and danced achingly slowly with beautiful grace and impossible feminine beauty around him. Myrrdin turned with her, unable to even think of looking away from her beauty and watched her vanish into the very oak he had been sleeping in!**

' **A dryad!' Myrrdin thought with glee in his suddenly clear mind, 'What more magical wood is there than dryad wood?'**

 **He took a step forward, about to climb the tree again and hack off a limb for his staff when he suddenly remembered her words- If you want something, you must catch me first!**

 **He remembered the stories the elders had told, of fairies who made deals for favors and of how terrible those favors were when finally called in. The stories always said to lay out your deal clearly and unambiguously as soon as possible so as to allow no tricks.**

" **If I catch you," Myrrdin said, thinking quickly through possible loopholes, "I'll want a ... a staff…" He stuttered anxiously, hoping he had figured out all the loopholes.**

" **Of course." The dryads' beautiful voice purred from behind him as he whipped around and saw her vanishing into another oak nearby, "That's always the reward for handsome young men!"**

 **Her laughter tinkled and echoed lightly and softly through the trees, the early rays of morning turning everything a wonderful golden under their golden streams. Myrrdin stood still, waiting for any sign of her and totally determined to catch her… he needed that branch!**

 **He noticed a flash of long white legs vanishing into a tree off to his left and he was off! Springing over rocks and sliding under logs, he chased the laughing and taunting goddess throughout the old forest. The chase was everything in that moment and all there was, was the chase. So focused was he that as he chased and she ran, he ran all the way until evening. As the light settled into that golden glow of an approaching sunset, he noticed a growing blush on her cheeks. He opened his mouth to ask why she was blushing when she questioned him.**

" **Even satyr give up after so long. Do you truly want me so badly?" She asked with a pause.**

" **Yes!" Growled Myrrdin without pausing, finally catching up and driving her softly into the moss. Her blush grew shy and appealing as he heaved in air like a prize stallion, catching his wind.**

" **I've never let anyone catch me before." The young dryad said shyly, "I've heard it hurts. Please be gentle."**

" **I will be." Myrrdin promised, lifting her up into a bridal carry, "Where's your tree?"**

" **That way." She said, blushing at his romanticism. Her mother had said that most men just want it right there and then, forget moving closer to her heart.**

 **Then they arrived at the tree, Myrrdin got his staff and was embarrassed by the laughter of the young dryad, and the young dryad finally got her first staff from the handsome young man.**

* * *

 **This story, while funny and subtle enough to tell even to young children, does contain some grains of truth. While Myrrdin, or Merlin as he came to be known later, did not actually develop the first staff, he was the first truly famous wizard to be recorded using one alongside his wand, unlike most wizards today. A staff must indeed be made out of a dryads' wood, and it must have the necessary power runes carved by the wizard who is going to use it. The exact shape and size of the runes is affected by the wizards power which helps to stabilize the power that will be pulled through it and the wizard. If a wizard tries to use another's staff and is too inflexible, they will have so much energy move through them that they explode violently. Extremely powerful wizards can use less powerful wizards staff easily because they have more experience channeling power and there is less power to control.**

 **The staff was a remarkable invention which was developed by fusing several separate concepts from several of the leading magical traditions of the time. It was a tool to manipulate leyline energy, specially crafted from dryad wood much like the giant stone monoliths were specially crafted for the static rituals, it needed runes to help syphon the energy much like the most basic of runic circles, and finally it needed chant and gestures, used much like their respective traditions to shape the magic being syphoned by the staff.**

 **While an incredible achievement, the staff did have several flaws much like each of the traditions beforehand had their own flaws. Blood magic required one to injure themselves or others, runic magic and runic circles required time to create and were relatively weak, rituals required even more time but were stronger, static rituals required giant constructions and specific locations but were very strong, dynamic rituals required large amounts of people and were strong, gesture and chant required extreme mental discipline and/or calming environments and were of middling strength.**

 **The staff on the other hand, while being the first magical focus which was both portable and quick to set up, requires the staff to be in unmoving contact with a natural surface at all times during the long chants and gestures required to summon up that large power, meaning that one cannot dodge like you can with chant or gesture magic. The staff also requires large amounts of mental discipline to complete the castings.**

 **The later development of Occlumency decreased the required mental discipline for all of these aforementioned traditions, allowing even an average wizard to use both rituals and a staff. Wizards these days do not carry a staff because the rarity of the wood (how often do you run into a dryad these days?) coupled with the need to master Occlumency as well as the high knowledge required to be able to customize the necessary runes means that only a select few people even attempt to get staves, and that many of those who try fail.**

 **Wands, developed sometime around five-hundred BC, took the idea of the staff to the next level. They are portable, allow one to dodge, allow one to obtain ritual-like effects with only a few words and a gesture and-**

"Nicky my man!" Sirius said, draping himself over the back of Flamels' chair suddenly and causing him to startle slightly. "Whatcha readin'?"

"A book on the development of the various magical traditions and the histories surrounding them." Flamel responded, placing his bookmark and closing the book to turn and face the now-standing-rather-than-flopping auror. "There is a chapter dedicated to each of the human magical traditions after the chapter I am reading. Then there is a chapter after that that has a pretty interesting theory on why centaurs and goblins and the rest seem to dislike us so much. I saw several chapters after that about the various other races traditions."

"Why are you reading that? Sounds like it's not very Sirius."

"No, it really is." Flamel disagreed with the innocence of a scholar, "It seems the author wants to have ritual magic broken up into categories and evaluated far more leniently than it is by the Ministry. I am inclined to agree, but not for the same reasons."

"You'd think a man would catch these things after five hundred years." Sirius grumbled. Flamel just blinked owlishly in response.

"Never mind." Sirius huffed, turning away and missing the cheeky grin on Flamels' face which quickly vanished as Sirius turned back.

"You didn't answer my question though. Why are you reading that for anyway? I thought you already knew most of that."

"I told you that Harry cannot use a wand right?" Sirius nodded, "Well I am trying to find alternatives so that Harry can learn to manipulate untuned magic. I am trying to make sure that he is not too far behind the rest of his yearmates when he finally figures out how to untune it himself and can actually use a wand."

"So far I have only one lead- a special type of crystal from Fiji that converts fire magic back into unturned magic. The only problem is that the magic that comes out is uncontrollable, just bursting away in a spray in every direction. It would not help Harry since he wouldn't be able to shape it before it vanished away, and I cannot use it to make a wand because of the same reason- the wand would short out." There was a pause as Sirius thought for a moment.

"Harry can do rituals and runes right?" Sirius asked. "As long as they're powered by something other than him or are capable of withstanding his fire?"

"Yes?" Flamel said with an upward lilt, "We did some runes two or three days ago since he is more or less finished with everything he can do with standard Alchemy before he gets potions instruction. Why?"

"So Harry can sense neutral magic, he just can't produce it?"

"He can only produce a spark of it before the fire rushes out." Flamel explained, "He makes just enough to start rituals and the like, rather like how a muggle or a squib can jumpstart a ritual too if it's powered from elsewhere... you know that right? The Obliviator squads gets two or three cases a year worldwide in where some muggle finds a ritual book somebodys' grandmother left behind and decides to try it out? Then you guys have to go in and clear up after whatever happened when the muggles freaked out and _Obliviate_ the crap out of everybody in the vicinity?"

"Yeah those are the worst." Sirius shuddered, and then grinned happily, "The overtime is amazing though."

"But that's beside the point," Sirius continued, shaking his head, "I wanted to know if he could manipulate neutral magic anyway, without having his own? If he can, then couldn't you just have somebody else feed him some like a battery and have him guide it out a wand almost like it was him providing the power?"

"No, that would not work because his body and magic would view it as ' _foreign magic'_. It would do its' best to stop what it viewed as an attack. It is totally instinctive so he probably would not be able to stop it. Feeding him magic is a good idea though. I think I could-" Flamels' thoughts ground to a halt.

He ripped the book open and flipped back a page.

 **… it must have the necessary power runes carved by the wizard who is going to use it. The exact shape and size of the runes is affected by the wizards power which helps to stabilize the power that will be pulled through it and the wizard. If a wizard tries to use another's staff and is too inflexible, they will have so much energy move through them that they explode violently. Extremely powerful wizards can use less powerful wizards staff easily because they have more experience channeling power and there is less power to control…**

 **... It was a tool to manipulate leyline energy … and finally it needed chant and gestures, used much like their respective traditions to shape the magic being syphoned by the staff.**

… **development of Occlumency decreased the required mental discipline…**

 _'Harry has power in spades,'_ Nicolas thought in almost a reverent tone, _'and the staff only acts like a syphon so his flames wouldn't incinerate it.'_

Nicolas looked up to look at Harry, now sitting at the edge of the lake and calmly trying to perform a dual-element alchemy transfiguration.

 _'He has plenty of control, he wouldn't even be attempting that if he didn't.'_ Nicolas looked down at the book with a grin, _'Harry is going to be amazing with the staff.'_


	7. Chapter 6: Start of a Journey

**Chapter 6**

* * *

A spiderweb of purple lightning streaked across the pitch black and stormy night sky, followed closely by a roar of thunder loud enough to rattle the teeth of the sailors scurrying around the deck and over the rigging.

Nicolas watched as Sirius, looking slightly ill from the rolling and heaving of the deck and very bedraggled from the rain sheeting down in buckets, staggered and slid up the ladder to the quarterdeck. There, Flamel stood imperiously, seemingly unconcerned by the storm raging about him as he watched both the storm and his young charge. Harry stood beside him on the wet deck with an upturned face, eyes closed, reveling in the feel of the storm.

The power of it was amazing, far greater than anything he had felt at the Flamel ranch. Every flash of lightning and crash of thunder seemed to resound to something deep within him. He loved it. Sirius clearly didn't.

"This is horrible! Why are we doing this?!" Sirius screamed as he finally reached the deck proper, trying to be heard above the howl of the wind and roar of the waves.

"We need to get a staff for Harry." Flamel replied calmly and quietly, his voice somehow reaching through the storm with perfect clarity in spite of the low volume. "And the nearest dryad that owes me a favor is in Canada. Harry needs to get some experience with the real world under his belt too."

"The plan I drew up for Harry's education was based on the assumption that he would be only slightly above average. However he is far more capable than that." Flamel grinned happily at Harry, who seemed not to notice, "I would be remiss in my duties as his guardian if I did not take the opportunity to educate him further. I think that showing him situations in which he could practically apply his studies before he starts them would certainly count. I find some subjects are quite boring if you do not know what they are for."

"That's not what I meant!" Sirius yelled back, "Why couldn't we just take a portkey?!" Sirius staggered slightly and grabbed ahold of a line affixed to the bulwark of the quarterdeck as the ship plowed into the depths of another wave, burying the foredeck under several feet of water before it exploded out the far side and the water drained rapidly.

"We could have been there and back already! Besides that," Sirius continued to yell, "Harry only turned four last week! Life experience is usually something people do after they have ages with two digits!"

"Age is meaningless for the vast majority of things. There are only those who are willing and those who are not." Flamel responded in that same quiet tone without turning. "Alchemy is a perfect example. Many people associate being old and decrepit with being an alchemist, yet Harry is very nearly a full alchemist already in terms of magical ability; in both control and power."

Harry grinned happily at this, betraying his awareness of the conversation as a warm feeling bubbled up inside him.

Admissions of competence on a subject were extremely hard to come by from Flamel, as his idea of true mastery was based on hundreds of years' worth of knowledge. He just expected _too much_ from people, having long ago grown out of touch with the concept that normal people might be novices at something other than alchemy, since when people came to him for help with something or other they were already accomplished and renowned wizards in their own right. His evaluation of 'competent' was other peoples 'master' while his evaluation of 'master' was nearly unobtainable.

Oh, he gave out praise often enough while he was teaching others or, more recently, while acting as Harrys' father and mentor, but Harry could count on one hand the number of times Flamel had called someone other than Perenelle a master at _anything_.

"He still needs to memorize the various potions ingredients and their properties so he can start making regular alchemical elixirs instead of just practicing non-material alchemy, and he needs to work on other things like general knowledge, but he has all the alchemical ability of a full alchemist." Flamel finished. He turned and eyed the soaked and ill-looking wizard for a moment before speaking.

"Sirius," he said slowly, as if to a small child, "While you may resemble a wet dog at the moment, you are a wizard, and we are on the Flying Dutchman, which is a wizarding ship… one with a fully-stocked doctor."

Sirius looked shocked for a second and then sheepishly pulled out his wand and cast an _Impervious_ Charm on his face and a sticking charm on his shoes.

"I'll just go get something for the nausea then." He sniffed primly as he regained some of his shattered dignity and retreated back down the stairs with far greater grace than he had attained coming up.

"Why _are_ we here?" Harry asked Flamel quietly, his voice carrying through the storm clearly, affected by the same spell that Nicolas had placed on himself that made the voice stand out against the storm: _Caelum Audiendo_. It was popular with ships captains (and crew) because it let them make their commands and hear the responses of the crew over the storm without having to shout their throats raw.

"What do you mean?" Flamel asked, looking to Harry, who's eyes remained closed against the vicious spray and flashes of lightning. "I already said that it was a learning experience in addition to going for your staff."

"No, I mean why couldn't we have just taken the portkey like Sirius said? I am enjoying the rolling sea and the feel of the wind and rain on my face since storms have always been something I enjoy, but we could have been to Canada already... I can't imagine that there is much in the way of life experience to be had on a ship at sea." Harry responded.

"Ah," Flamel said, reaching out and tapping Harry on the nose, startling him into opening his eyes fully for a moment before they squinted against the pelting rain, "You've got it on the nose."

Harry wrinkled his nose and rubbed it as he thought.

"What have I got?" He finally asked, somewhat cross at being unable to figure out exactly _what_ he had gotten.

"The storm and the sea." Flamel stated, "You remember our conversation about the modified animagus potion Sirius had me make you for your birthday?"

"Yes?" Harry half-said, confused, "You said that when Sirius came to you asking whether I were too young for animagus training you told him that that I wasn't, but because of what happened with Tom I wouldn't have an animagus form because it was burned away when the ritual consumed all my normal magic. You said you made a special potion that would slowly create a new form for me by finding common ground within all my magic and enhancing it."

"That's right." Flamel said with an unseen smile, "It's a slightly modified formula for an old potion used to give animagus forms to those who do not have them naturally. Do you remember the rest of what I said?"

"You said that while it was a very useful potion for people who don't have natural forms that can be revealed by the usual potion, the downside was that it requires experiencing a magically significant event such as nearly dying or finding a harmonic with natural magic to cause the first change instead of just meditation and study." Harry replied.

"Correct." Flamel nodded sagely. "Consider this- if you need a magical event of some kind to activate it for the first time, the potion must be sensitive to outside magic, yes?"

Harry nodded.

"And what would occur if you never experienced the necessary stimulus?"

Harry blinked.

"Nothing… oh…that's bad." Harry said as the answer hit him. "We're here to have me experience the natural magic of the ocean more directly, in case I have a fish or a whale or something in the ocean as an animagus right? And that's why we visited all those places in England on our way to the ship?"

"Bingo!" Flamel said happily, "Now you said that you like the feeling of storms?"

"Yeah," Harry said slowly, "I like the way you can feel the power of the storm. It's impassive, undefeatable, massive. It's… I- I want to be like a storm when I face _Him_. Unstoppable. Invincible." Harry stopped for a moment as a look of pain shot across his face and was instantly replaced by a towering rage that vanished just as quickly as Harry took a breath and calmed himself, cycling through Occulumency exercises.

"It's fine Harry." Flamel said, crouching down and pulling Harry into a hug, "I think you took my words too much to heart about not letting your anger get away from you after you burned down that shed accidently. You're allowed to feel angry. You can yell and scream and cry all you want. You probably should let it out. I was just worried about you getting hurt if you let your magic get away from you. That shed nearly fell on you when the supports burned out."

Harry shook his head as he burrowed his head into Flamel's warm chest and hugged the man back.

"Do I have to let it go now?" Harry asked in a quivering voice, "I don't want to forget. I want to keep it all for _Him_. I'm going to kill _Him_ eventually and I want to make sure he knows how much he hurt me."

"No, you don't need to let it go now Harry." Flamel said sadly, "It was just a suggestion. I said that because you looked like you needed to get rid of some of it."

"I won't tell you to let go of your anger, heaven knows I don't," Flamel rolled his eyes, "but make sure that your anger doesn't get you hurt because you rushed off and did something without thinking, since that would make me very sad, okay?"

"Okay Dad." Harry mumbled. Flamel waited a moment.

"And if I'm very sad I'd have to turn your hair pink for a month right?" Flamel said with a grin. Harry chuckled.

"That wasn't my fault."

"Says you." Flamel said with a smile, "I'm not convinced. Accidental magic doesn't follow the same rules as normal magic. It could have been you."

"I told you it was Mom, I saw her smirk!" Harry protested with a puppy dog look which he managed to hold onto for several seconds before cracking into full-blown laughter.

"Feeling better now?" Flamel asked gently when Harry's laughter subsided.

"Yeah." Harry said, causing Flamel to release the hug and stand up straight again.

"EEerrrr." Flamel groaned as his back popped.

"Getting old, old man?" Harry sniped with a grin.

"The word is venerable! It's much more dignified." Flamel said with a snooty air and an upturned nose that caused them both to laugh after a moment or two.

"But back to our previous topic," Flamel said, brushing off the moment of humor, "I was going to talk to you about this at the halfway point of our trip, but since it came up earlier I see no reason you couldn't start trying to harmonize with the ocean now. You should probably concentrate on trying to harmonize with the storm more than the sea if that's what draws you. Your feelings are important when searching for your animal form regardless of the method you use or the form you take."

Harry nodded again.

"Try to meditate from time to time for the rest of our trip on the magic around you, and if you ever feel that something is calling you or pushing you during your meditation tell us and we'll take a detour to investigate. If you don't find your animal form in this trip, we'll make two trips a year to different locations around the world to try and find your activation stimulus until you start Hogwarts."

"I will." Harry said as Flamel waved a goodbye and made his way below decks as Harry sat and started to meditate.

* * *

"So what do you think?" Harry asked Fawkes after an hour of meditation, "Do you feel anything else?"

"No, not really, just the unspecific draw to the storm." Fawkes stated calmly, despite looking much the worse for wear, "Frankly I'm surprised we can feel anything at all, it's been a mess in here ever since Sirius gave you that blasted potion. We're constantly at each-others' throats trying to decide what we're going to be."

"But Dad said-"

"He said that the potion would find common ground within your magic for the animagus form," Fawkes cut off young boy, "And the only thing we can seem to agree on is that it needs to be powerful. We won't have you have weak animal form, plus it needs to be able to survive your rather inhospitable soul."

"Hey!" Harry protested, "My soul is just fine thank you very much!"

"Yes Harry, I'm sure that normal people have cursed fire and lightning in their soul held off by the tremendous healing powers of a phoenix." Fawkes said sarcastically, "Besides, you can't deny that whatever your first animal form was wasn't able to cut it when we took over in here. That's why we're in this mess to-!"

Fawkes blinked, then sighed.

"Sorry, I told you it's been a mess in here. We've all been feeling overly moody and riled up in turns." Fawkes took a breath and let it out slowly, "It's been incredibly trying attempting to deal with both the scraps the other two get into all the while my emotional control seems to be going haywire. I'll be glad when this gets over."

"Can I help somehow?" Harry asked.

Fawkes shook his head slowly. "I don't think so, our desires seem to be mutually exclusive. I want something that can heal and fly and has positive connotations like a phoenix, while Chathuga seems to want something that causes mindless destruction and has fire (or at least burns things), perhaps a dragon, while Crackles seems to not care about the disposition or form as long as it has something to do with lightning, like an electric eel or a raiju. I don't know of any creature that has all of that."

Harry sat down in the fire-grass and thought. A few minutes later, he spoke up.

"What is the single most important thing you want for our animagus Fawkes?"

"Hmm." Fawkes considered for a moment, "Flight. I want everything else, but I NEED it to fly."

"Chathuga? Same question?" Harry asked.

"All burn." The black fire responded. Fawkes groaned.

"You don't care as long as stuff gets destroyed?" Harry asked with a note of disbelief. "I thought fire was your thing?"

Chathuga radiated agreement.

"Huh, strange. I wouldn't have guessed that your goal was destruction rather than 'burning'." Harry said thoughtfully, turning to Crackles, "Crackles, how about you?"

Crackles crackled back happily.

"Of course, lightning." Harry said with a smile. "And now we know what to look for: some sort of flying creatures which spreads destruction and wields lightning."

Harry nodded cheerfully. "Is everyone ok with that?"

"I can live with it." Fawkes said, while the others offered their tacit agreement.

"Cool, I'll try to help." Harry said, closing his eyes and drawing all the magic in the immediate area together into one spot, where an illusory egg rapidly condensed. After a few moments, it stabilized as 'real' and promptly burst into flame and incinerated.

"Err-" Harry started as he opened his eyes to the scene, "Was it supposed to do that?"

"No." Fawkes said with obvious relief in his voice. "But whatever you did released that infuriating drive to find a form. I feel much better, thank you for sorting that out, I was starting to go crazy with the constant mood swings and arguments."

Chathuga and Crackles murmured their agreement.

"Did I mess up the potion?" Harry pressed worriedly.

"No, I still feel that we'll have to do it eventually, but we can wait until you find that stimuli Flamel talked about without it pushing us. It's like you put it 'on hold', you still have to answer the call eventually, just not right now. I imagine that if your magic wasn't as intelligent as us it would have done that instinctively to protect itself. Now go get out of the rain before you catch cold and go below decks to read a novel or something. You've been practicing alchemy transformations quite a lot and I think you should take a rest."

"Alright Fawkes," Harry said, rising as he willed himself out of his soul. "I'll come visit tomorrow so we can talk about what you think the conditions are to wake it up!" Harry said as he vanished.

Fawkes chuckled quietly. Harry was certainly far more energetic and emotionally volatile than his previous masters, probably because of his age. Fawkes let his concentration lapse, falling down into sleep with a sigh of relief.

It had been a long week.

* * *

"Wat'cha-" The unexpected voice caused Harry to squeak with surprise and tumble out of the hammock, ending in a heap on the deck with a thump.

"-doin'?" Sirius ended on a worried note as Harry's face flamed with embarrassment. "You all right there Prongslet?"

"I'm fine Uncle Sirius. You just surprised me." Harry said with as much dignity as he could muster. "I was reading."

"What book?" Sirius inquired curiously.

"Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten." Harry said calmly, making Sirius blink. Sirus opened his mouth and Harry waved the question off.

"In English it's called the 'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals', I'm reading it because it was the only book on the ship that was in another language. It's not very exciting."

There was a pause while Sirius digested that.

"But why are you reading it?" He asked after a moment.

"Oh!" Harry said sheepishly, "I was trying out Dad's birthday present: Language Lozenges. They're magical candies that hold a whole language. You just have to eat it and then you'll know the language when you wake up the next day! You can read it and speak it and everything! Dad got me a full set!"

"That sounds incredibly useful," Sirus said excitedly, "Why haven't I heard about them? Do they have downsides? And what did you mean a full set?"

Harry scrunched up his face in thought before answering.

"There are no downsides that I know of. Dad said they're very expensive though, about a thousand galleons each." Sirius' eyes widened at this.

"A thousand galleons _each_?" Sirius said in shock, "That's like the cost of a new broom!"

Harry nodded, "Yeah, I'd think that most people would rather just keep casting a temporary Translation Charm than spend that much money to learn it permanently, so that's probably why you've never heard of them. Dad said that one of the few people he knew who used a lot of them besides himself and Mom was Mr. Crouch, and that because his job as Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation let defray some of the cost by claiming it as a job expense and getting partially reimbursed."

"And to answer your last question, a full set of Language Lozenges includes not only all the spoken languages in-use today (including magical ones like Mermish and Gobbledygook) but also as many historical languages as they could piece together. It also includes a few that contain body language and nonverbal communication of animals as well as people. Dad told me to eat the English one and then the nonverbal ones before doing any of the others, so today is the first day I got to choose which language to learn. I chose German because I wanted to try out the reading part. The captain told me it was left by one of their former passengers on accident."

"Huh." Sirius said with a thoughtful look, "I knew Barty Sr. learned a whole bunch of languages after he left the DMLE but I didn't know he used magic to learn them all."

Sirius shrugged.

"So how about my present?" He asked with a sudden grin, "Do you know what your form is yet? Are you a stag? James was one and Lily was a doe so it wouldn't surprise me if you were."

"No, I'm not a stag." Harry said with a grimace, "I haven't really gotten any clues yet but I think it's probably some sort of flying creature with an appetite for destruction and lightning."

"Weren't you sick a few hours ago?" Harry asked, quickly changing the subject. Sirius could be incredibly impatient when he wanted something.

"Anti-seasickness potions are amazing!" Sirius exclaimed, thoughtful expression wiped off his face in favor of excitement, "I tried the muggle pills the last time I went on a ship, but they just seemed to make me even sicker. The potion seems to end the nausea and fix that rolling feeling all at once! The healer said that it 're-centered the inner ear', which was why I wasn't able to stand for ten minutes after taking it; but after that I was cured."

"Hmm." Harry evaluated with a hum, "I bet that could be useful for other things…"

"Oi!" Sirius interrupted his thoughts, "Don't go off into your own world just yet. You mentioned lightning, flight and destruction, it's time to do some research and figure out what it is!"

"Hmmm." Harry hummed non-committedly. "I was told to relax for the rest of this trip, I've apparently been practicing and studying too much. I promised that I would read a novel or learn to play cards or something instead of working. I'd be happy to look up my animagus with you later though."

"I see." Sirius replied, nodding sagely, "Don't worry about the old man and relaxing so much, he got on my case about it too. Said I was a 'hotheaded young man' who 'never knew when to stop and think instead of rushing ahead'. He…"

Sirius paused.

"Did you say cards?"

Harry nodded and Sirius grinned hugely.

"Excellent!" He cried in overly dramatic happiness, "I didn't teach you because I thought you should be at least six before learning to scalp people, but I see Nicky has more faith in you! I'm a horrible godfather to doubt your abilities in the slightest! I'll teach you all my tricks! With your innocent face you can't lose!"

Sirius rubbed his hands eagerly.

"So this is how you count cards…"

* * *

"There you are Harry! Did you get enough to eat? Did you have a good time?" Perenelle asked, fussing over him as the crew of the ship bustled about with their dock duties.

"Yeah! It was fun! I learned to play cards!" Harry said excitedly.

"You learned to _win_ at cards kid!" One of the sailors called to Harry as they brought his luggage ashore for him, "Your luck is somethin' to behold. You should come back and give us a rematch sometime… you can bring the Loser too!"

The rest of the sailors laughed as Sirius climbed from below deck and started down the gangplank, grumbling and wearing a stormy expression on his face. He was wearing his last set of clothes, a pink Hawaiian shirt and a set of jeans that the sailors had magnanimously given him back to cover his Speedo trunks. He had on two different shoes and a set of broken sunglasses, topped by a purple and orange afro.

He also had the word 'LOSER' written on his forehead in permanent marker.

With the S backwards.

Harry shook his head and smiled.

"I told you that-" "I shouldn't cheat unless I was prepared to be cheated, yes I know!" Sirius finished irritably, "How was I supposed to know that they'd be better at it than me?"

"Besides," He continued darkly, "Even with that, I wouldn't have lost that badly if they hadn't ganged up on me. The Marauders were always the ones ganging up on the little fish. It's embarrassing!"

Perenelle looked up with surprise.

"It's your own fault my boy!" Nicolas said pompously as he swaggered down the ramp adorned in ostentatious gold bling and wearing a gold crown which said 'WINNER' in two inch gold letters.

He pulled the crown off his head and polished the crown by breathing on it and rubbing with one of Sirius' lost silk shirts, causing Sirius to grit his teeth and growl.

"You were the one that insisted on starting betting in an attempt to restore your pride after losing a few hands. Your exact words were ' _I'll do better if there is more on the line to lose_ ' if I remember correctly. I'm sure you wouldn't have been forced to bet silly things like ' _A chance to dye my hair_ ' and ' _A chance to write on my head_ ' if you had merely accepted that cheating wasn't going to get you anywhere and played honestly."

Flamel set the crown on Harry's head, where it promptly slid down over his eyes before Harry pushed it up and back to rest on his ears.

"You should have taken your cues from Harry, he didn't let the first twenty losses influence him into cheating. Look where honesty got him! It got him an invite back and the respect of nearly twenty sailors who are now thoroughly convinced that Harry is favored by the goddess of luck."

"Yes, well…" Sirius grumbled, as he flicked a wand at his hair to correct it back to normal "Lucky Ol' Prongslet here pulled me away from the game before I could lose my money too thank God. The bets' durations are through now that we're here so I'm going to go buy some damn clothes now and get out of this Speedo, it is starting to chafe."

"You go do that." Perenelle said with a sweet tone that caused Sirius to flinch, "And then we'll discuss you unsuccessfully teaching Harry how to cheat at cards."

Sirius hurried off with a fearful glance backwards and the innocently smiling yet clearly angry Perenelle. There was a pause, then-

"You're only pissed at Sirius because he didn't teach Harry how to cheat _properly_ aren't you?" Nicolas asked with a grin.

"Cheating at cards _correctly_ is a good skill to have." Perenelle said calmly.

Nicolas laughed as Harry giggled.

"You were the one out-cheating him weren't you Nick?" She said after a moment's pause. Harry's head whipped around to see a roguish smile that didn't deny anything.

"He forgot about the LOSER on his head too, didn't he?"

Nicolas just started laughing harder.


	8. Chapter 7: One-track minds

**Chapter 7**

* * *

Werlea was not an old dryad. In fact, at eight hundred years old she was barely considered a mature sapling by some of the truly ancient dryads. Four hundred years ago, she had most certainly been a seedling, and like children of all species there were a number of diseases that could affect her that wouldn't affect full adults.

Twist-bark was one such disease. It is a highly annoying and very distracting disease for young dryads, causing a painful itching sensation that one can't seem to satisfy and scattering any attempts at concentration through sheer annoyance.

She had been fighting the disease for nearly a decade when a handsome young man named Nicolas Flamel came to her and offered his services in curing her in return for a favor.

At the time she had reverted to her instincts in the same manner as young children everywhere revert to their baser instincts to cry mindlessly when they are injured or sick, and she had accepted his proposal instantly in an attempt to get away from the all-encompassing itching.

After he finished treating her and she had sighed with relief and begun to think clearly for the first time in nearly a decade, she had happily offered her body to her savior (for what else do strapping young males want from pretty young females?) but he had shattered her expectations with two devastating comments: "I'm married" and "You're more than a little too young for me".

She had known intellectually from her older sister dryads' words that most human men didn't want them in that way until they were at least seven hundred years old, even though their species' could reproduce when as young as four hundred, but being as isolated as she was, she hadn't really internalized that knowledge through exposure to human men.

That was when she had started to get a little worried about what he would request.

Horror stories had started to bubble to the surface of her mind as she remembered all the things her sister dryads (whom had taken the time to visit her isolated home) had taught her. She remembered all the gruesome ways dryads could be chopped up and used as potions ingredients or killed and used to fuel dark rituals or chopped down and ground into powder to be put in special inks or fed to ravenous hell-beasts or-

He had stopped her runaway imagination and mollified her nascent fears somewhat by promising not to ask for anything 'too extreme', and after several days he had left without requesting anything.

Twenty years later, she had been surprised to see Nicolas come tromping into her little glen, looking like he hadn't aged a day. She had half-hoped over the last two decades that he would age and die before he came to collect on the favor, even if only because she didn't know what he wanted.

She had braced herself for the worst, a callous demand for her lifeblood or her still-beating heart for use in some ritual or potion, but he had merely kept her company for a week. He spent that time talking to her about the current events in the world at large and giving her tree a checkup before leaving, again without making a request.

Twenty years after that, he did it again.

And then again.

And again.

Eventually, she had broken under the stress during one of his visits and flat-out asked him if he was just taunting her with his visits and enjoying her growing fear of eventual death and dismemberment.

He had been shocked at her vehemence and clear fear and promptly made a binding magical oath to not ask for anything that she was unwilling to give. Stunned at this, she had listened dumbly as he apologized to her, saying that he hadn't intended his promise about not asking for anything 'too extreme' to cause her duress. He said that she looked a bit lonely when he had cured her so he had decided to visit from time to time.

That was the first day she started to see him as a friend.

In the years since that fateful meeting, he would periodically bring his wife to visit, and she became fast friends with Perenelle as well. They would visit and talk for a while, relaxing in her glade and generally having a good time. Occasionally they would bring a friend whom they swore to secrecy, but usually it was just the three of them.

So, when Nicolas had asked if she would consider making a staff for his apprentice, she could hardly say no.

Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't play some harmless jokes on him when he came. After all, when you lived this far in the backwoods with little contact with the rest of the world, you took your entertainment where you could get it.

* * *

Harry knew he was lost.

Granted, that state of affairs didn't frighten him because he had actually been expecting it. One part of a dryads' magic involved making a traveler lost in the woods before confronting them. That meant that he was getting close, which was a good thing.

He hadn't been expecting being lost and _alone_ however.

Their group had been traveling along just fine until he had looked back for just a moment, thinking he heard something. When he turned back forwards, the others had not been there.

He hadn't panicked, and he had tried to call and look for them with what he believed was commendable presence of mind. Eventually, in his attempts to locate the others he had somehow lost the trail. That was when he had realized his situation and stopped searching.

It wasn't a bad thing that he was lost, because he actually needed to be lost to find the dryad, but he hadn't realized just how daunting being lost and alone was until he experienced it.

It wasn't daunting enough to stop him, no- he was stronger than that. He would get through this situation without worrying too much that nobody would ever find him again and he'd be lost forever. He wouldn't be stopped by such a little thing.

Even if the dryad didn't want to meet him, he'd stay out in this wood and stay lost until she gave up and gave him his staff. He'd out-stubborn her if he had to.

He was Harry James Potter, the boy who was going to grow up and end Tom once and for all, so there was no way he could be forced into using his emergency escape portkey by merely being lost and alone in the woods… even if he was a little nervous.

* * *

After separating the little boy that Nicolas hadn't mentioned was _adorable_ from the rest of his group, Werlea had expected him to panic a little before she swooped in dramatically, comforting the little guy and hugging and soothing him like a teddy bear while explaining that it was just a harmless little trick. He looked very huggable…

That plan went out the window when he didn't panic.

Instead, he shocked her by calmly searching for the party and, when he couldn't find them, fixing an expression of granite determination on his face and continuing on, deeper into the forest.

Yes, his actions were the correct response when looking for a dryad that didn't want to be found, but she hadn't expected him to correctly assess the situation and continue on with such easy determination. The cute little boy was just a child!

When she had told Nicolas and the others what she had spied from her various trees after they arrived at her central glade, Flamel had only laughed and stated, "Harry overcomes every expectation I've set before him by a commendable margin. I revise my estimates up to match his work and he works even harder. I told him that a staff might help him overcome some of the problems that are coming in his education as a wizard and now he's determined to get one. You aren't capable of stopping him without seriously hurting him."

Not _capable_ of stopping a cute little four-year old?! The nerve!

She'd see about that! There were more things in the forest than simple solitude and her pride was on the line!

…even if he was like a teddy bear.

* * *

The howling of the wolves hadn't scared him at sundown, but it had made him wary.

' _Constant Vigilance hmm?'_ Harry thought, shifting on the branch he was now stretched out on as he mentally giggled slightly hysterically to himself.

Dad had always said that with a little chuckle and smile and told Harry that a friend of his liked to say that phrase. Harry had always considered it a bit of a joke given how it was presented, but Harry was now finding it to be very good life advice. He wanted to meet the man who lived by that maxim because he clearly knew a few things.

Merlin probably agreed with the concept since in the story his dad had read to Harry he had climbed a tree to guard against wolves that _might_ have been in the forest. Harry had unrepentantly stolen the idea because wolves certainly couldn't climb a tree to get to him, and he had a job to do and he was going to see it done.

He had a job to do and he was going to do it, so he wasn't scared of wolves.

He wasn't scared of being lost and alone in the woods at night with wolves.

Even if it was creepy that they were sitting right below him at the base of the tree watching with glowing green eyes.

He wasn't scared…

HE WASN'T!

He took a breath and cycled through his Occlumency exercises to calm down.

' _All right, I am scared, a little.'_

There, he admitted it. He was a little nervous and a little scared and even Dad said that was okay, it was something new and new things were always a little bit scary. The important thing was that he needed a staff to help kill Tom and he couldn't have the staff until he found the dryad, so he couldn't afford to be too scared and leave with the portkey.

He could be a little scared though.

He would sleep in this tree till daytime and then go looking for the dryad some more. That's what he'd do. He'd be fine.

He was very happy he remembered 'Constant Vigilance.'

* * *

It had been a long time since she'd been impressed, but sleeping in a tree above the illusion of a dozen starving wolves designed to look, sound, and mostly act like real animals without more than an occasional flinch was something she would easily admit was impressive for a four-year old.

Flamel had been ever so slightly smug after being proven correct when he scryed the boy in her pool, while Perenelle was seemingly annoyed that she was testing Harry. The woman was clearly besotted with him and railed loudly about how he was only four.

Werlea could see that she was secretly rather proud of him for toughing it out though.

The man she hadn't met before, Sirius, had just laughed and called it 'a good prank' when he saw what was happening.

* * *

It was nearly lunchtime and they still hadn't left, and Harry was starting to get annoyed. He wasn't scared of them anymore, he could see that they were just wolves. Last night they had seemed like demons from hell with horrible glowing eyes and spectral forms that melted into the darkness, but now that he could see them clearly they were almost like big, angry dogs.

And they were in his way.

He had thrown several dead sticks that he had found in the tree at them in an attempt to get them to leave, but that had only made them retreat. He had tried yelling at them too, but that didn't faze them at all. They thought he was food. He could see it.

Their body language screamed 'You are prey'.

They thought they could kill and eat him.

They were wrong.

Harry screwed the earplugs tighter into his ears and put on his sunglasses over his prescription glasses. He'd make one more attempt to scare them off before he killed them. Dad had always said that it was a good idea to evaluate all your options before taking an irreversible one, and alchemy was his last non-lethal option that didn't involve running away via portkey, which he was firmly determined to not do.

Harry raised his hands palms up, and preformed advanced alchemy. Multi-element non-material alchemy to be precise.

Non-material alchemy is very different from standard alchemy.

In standard alchemy, one or more elemental magics are infused permanently or injected temporarily into a potion at various times to produce various effects in the final product.

In non-material alchemy, an actual _physical_ manifestation of an element is created and used to cause various effects. One of the more popular uses of non-material alchemy is simply creating water to dilute a potion for one step. It makes it easier to transfer or work the potion with for one step and the alchemist can let it vanish back into ambient magic whenever they desire … without having to boil it off (and possibly ruining the potion).

' _Fire in first hand, raise temperature as high as I can, compress as tightly as possible, seal with a film of air.'_

Harry hummed as he spun the fire one direction and the air another to create a hard line of demarcation between the two elements. If he didn't, the air and fire would mix, causing the fire to grow rapidly as the air fed it, destabilizing the whole thing before he wanted it to. It looked pretty, almost like a glass sphere filled with a brightly glowing white-hot core.

' _Water in second hand, compress and raise temperature with fire magic to near-boiling levels, almost cover with a thin crystalline earth shell.'_

This one looked like almost like the world's most perfectly spherical geode as the sphere of deep blue water grew a tiny film of brown rock crystal over it. The earth had to be hard crystal instead of regular earthy dirt since normal earth would diffuse into the water to form mud, losing the ability to hold the water together after it left his immediate control.

' _Insert condensed fire construct into water sphere, finish covering water sphere with crystal and-'_

Harry carefully guided the first sphere inside the other and stopped it in the center of the water construct by feel.

He squished the film of air inwards sharply as he abruptly reversed the spin, compressing and suddenly feeding the fire just as he threw the baseball-sized sphere hard at the wolves and ducked behind the tree to another branch.

Predictably, the fire increased in temperature as it was both compressed and fed by the air, roaring into sudden heights of temperature that promptly flash-boiled the water around it, destroying the ultra-thin crystal shell and blowing outwards after traveling only a few feet.

A flash of light, burst of superheated steam, and an extreme pressure wave instantly blinded and deafened the wolves, causing burns on their exposed noses and tongues and bowling them over.

It nearly knocked Harry out of the tree but it also scattered them wolves to the winds, howling the whole way. He released his grasp on the magic and the cloud of fog that remained from the detonation vanished like it had never been.

Harry frowned, then took his earplugs out, put his sunglasses away and climbed out of the tree.

This first use of his best non-lethal attack in a real situation had revealed some glaring flaws.

It had taken nearly three seconds to prepare that blast, far too long based on how fast those wolves moved. He would never have gotten it off in time if he had been surprised. He hadn't noticed the slow creation speed of his technique before because he had mainly been working on his aim and struggling to learn how to keep the thing stable until it reached his target, which was another problem, although a known one.

Needing to maintain concentration on an attack to keep it stable over distances longer than about eight feet was a horrible flaw in the real world, even if it wasn't a serious concern on the range. He had steadfastly ignored it up until now since he didn't have any other options, but now he was being forced to accept that it was a truly fatal flaw. He was hardly to blame for that issue however, since alchemy was designed mainly as an ancillary to potions and even the elementalist roots of alchemy mostly focused on things like lighting your sword on fire rather than making ranged attacks.

Besides that, it also required protective gear to keep it from affecting himself. Again, it was something he hadn't really noticed until he realized a few minutes ago that he didn't have a set of safety glasses and was forced to improvise by using his sunglasses. Nicolas always used protective gear on the range when designing and practicing spells simply to prevent accidental injuries, and he had picked up the habit without quite recognizing what a flaw it was to design a technique to _need_ those to operate correctly.

Maybe he should just give up on trying to match wizards in ranged combat and just focus on learning to close the distance and take the fight to them? He was certainly far more capable when people were within punching distance, where his alchemy was easier to control and he could attack with his flames if he had to.

Harry shook off that thought and made a mental note to ask Nicolas for his opinion when he got back.

He picked a direction that looked like it went deeper into the forest. That was where dryads liked to live wasn't it?

* * *

What was _that_?

That strange blast had 'scared' the illusions into running and she let them dissolve as they moved beyond Harry's sensory range.

She'd seen alchemy before, so she recognized what it was, but she'd never seen _weaponized_ alchemy before.

She snorted.

She should have expected it from Nicolas' apprentice, even if he was super adorable.

* * *

Thirty minutes later Harry stopped for lunch nearly two miles from where he had spent the night. Another whisper to himself of 'Constant Vigilance' had sent him up a tree again.

As he ate his lunch, Harry watched a brown bear and her cubs walk past his tree with barely a glance in his direction.

"You should thank God for Constant Vigilance Mrs. Bear, otherwise you might have surprised me and I might have killed you accidentally."Harry murmured.

* * *

Elsewhere, Mad-Eye Moody sneezed and checked his wards before taking a bezoar… just in case.

* * *

She'd managed to divert the curious brown bear cubs, which hadn't ever seen a human before, with a few subtle compulsions and a promise to meet some at her glade, but the words he murmured while sitting in one of her trees had surprised her.

Most creatures, even most magical creatures, were cautious about risking a bear attack for the simple reason that bears could take absolutely massive amounts of damage before they went down.

The fact that he was worried more about the bear than himself made her very curious.

She'd have to push a little harder to see what he was holding back.

* * *

Harry climbed another tree at dusk, but this time nothing showed up to distract him from taking the time to consider his situation more deeply.

It had been nearly two full days since he left Nicolas and Perenelle behind with Sirius, but he hadn't seen the dryad yet. Merlin literally fell onto a dryad on his third day, but was that coincidence or was it a deliberate meeting?

Harry hummed to himself thoughtfully as he relaxed. He'd find out tomorrow.

It was strange, but the longer he was lost in the woods the less he felt like it was a problem. He had food, water, and the ability to find both if he ran out (courtesy of the bare-bones survival course Nicolas and Perenelle had put him through right before the trip). He could kill to defend himself even if he didn't relish the thought of doing so, and if he really wanted to get out he could just activate his portkey. He didn't even have to use his portkey if he didn't want to either, he could just pick a direction based on the sun and keep walking. He'd hit an ocean or river eventually and then he could just follow the edge of that. Dad said that most groups of people like to live by the water of one kind or another.

He didn't even have to move really- he could just let his fiendfyre out and let the forest fire that would eventually result bring rescuers to him. It wasn't like the flames from a forest fire were a problem for him, though they'd certainly attract plenty of attention from other people.

Harry slowly drifted off to sleep with a smile as he made up wilder and wilder plans for getting rescued… not that he was planning on it.

* * *

Harry awoke to the sound of snarling and growling, which he quickly identified to be two members of the wolfpack which had accosted him on that first night.

The bigger one was slightly injured, perhaps in the fight that ejected the two of them from the main pack, which didn't bode well for his chances of scaring them off. Predators usually stay away from difficult prey if they were injured. Clearly the larger one figured he wasn't difficult prey.

"I gave you two a chance, but you didn't take it like the others did. I'm sorry it has to be this way, you two seem to still think I'm food. You're far too dangerous for me to risk my neck for your hard heads. The others understood I was too strong for them, why can't you?" Harry chided with a sigh of exasperation.

He climbed to the lowest branch and then jumped out and away from the tree.

The wolves turned and started for him as he landed in a tumbled heap.

Then Harry smoothly released his magic.

A huge fiendfyre serpent with green lightning rolling along its sides flashed into existence floating well off the ground coiled around him.

One wolf, moving too fast and in the midst of a leap fell into the side of the lizard and instantly vaporized. The second successfully managed to abort its' attack and started to flee when it felt the intense heat (which had already set the leaves on the ground ablaze for twenty feet in every direction), but the serpent shot its' head out in a viper-like strike and disintegrated the beasts' back half with a vicious bite before it could take more than two steps.

Harry screwed up his nose against the leaf-smoke as he once again grasped his magic firmly and caused the beast to wink out. He started patting at the smoldering edges of his clothes idly while he moved around the smouldering circle of leaves, spewing water magic onto hotspots to cool them and stamping out flames with his now-smoking boots.

He sighed again.

Even after he had learned how to release his raw magic in a way that didn't cause his clothes to be incinerated by using his shaping alchemy skills to keep it away from his body, it still ended up crisping even magically 'fireproofed' clothes. Typically magicals used a special loom with specific runic enhancements to make permanent 'fireproof' clothes. When it didn't need to be permanent, the Flame-Freezing charm was supposed to work wonders.

Unfortunately, both methods used the same type of thread as normal clothes, which didn't matter most of the time, but when you're dealing with flames that burn at temperatures sufficient to disintegrate rock like a blowtorch disintegrates butter, even the best enchantments need a little mundane help.

' _I should ask for asbestos clothes for Christmas.'_ Harry mused idly, _'Or maybe Nomex. Or-'_

"Hey," said an unearthly and beautiful voice from behind him, causing his thoughts to hiccup.

' _-or I could turn around and see who's behind me.'_

* * *

Well… _that_ certainly explained why Nicolas had been so convinced that she couldn't stop him without hurting him.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that he was far more determined, focused, and intelligent than any four year old had a right to be, he had some sort of massive flame that obeyed his will; and since dryads were nervous around flames for obvious reasons, she was at a rather large disadvantage when trying to deal with him.

Of course, she couldn't imagine _anybody_ being at ease around those flames.

Simply judging from the raw heat they had radiated in the scant few seconds the boy had materialized them, he could probably use them to burn straight through a mountain that got in his way, let alone her beautiful forest.

Keeping in mind the aforementioned iron determination and adding the super-hot flames that could literally burn her home down if he got too annoyed at being denied, she had no idea how she might stop him from looking for her without hurting him.

Nicolas was going to be insufferable for a day or two.

Besides, she didn't want to hurt him in the first place, he was pretty cute… like a teddy bear.

"Hey." Werlea said, stepping out of one of her trees.

' _He's even more adorable in person!'_ She thought with a mental giggle as he turned around.

* * *

Harry turned around.

' _A naked girl with green hair so dark it was almost black. She matches the description Nicolas gave exactly.'_

He examined her more closely.

She seemed to be a girl of about sixteen years of age, with relatively small breasts and rather long legs. She seemed to glow in the sunbeams coming through the canopy, and what little he could smell through the dissipating smoke reminded him of flowers.

"Are you Werlea?" He asked calmly, voice not betraying the importance of the question.

"Yep!" She responded, tucking her hands behind her and rocking on her heels with clear tension, "Are you Harry Potter?"

"Yes." Harry said seriously, nodding, "I've come to see you."

"I know, can I hug you?" She asked rapidly with an oddly intense expression on her face.

Harry paused as he tried to find a hidden message in the non-sequitur. Her body had gone still, which meant that there was something important about the statement, but he couldn't quite figure out what.

"Yes?" He half-asked after having failed to find whatever was important in the question.

Werlea squealed and darted forward, scooping him into a hug and smooshing his face into her chest. Ignoring his confusion as to _why_ she was doing it for a moment, he had to admit that her breasts were quite comfortable.

There was a pause as Werlea hummed happily and cuddled him.

After a moment, Harry decided that he needed to restart the conversation and shifted slightly to look up at her face.

Dad always said that you almost can't go wrong by complementing a woman.

"You're very pretty." He said bluntly, "Now I don't suppose-"

"Oh!" She interrupted with a squeal, blushing and hugging him even more tightly, "That's the most adorable thing ever!"

He sighed, prompting another squeal and a hand to start petting his messy hair.

This was going to take a while.


	9. Chapter 8: Staff and soul

**Chapter 8**

* * *

"Hey Dad?" Harry queried from the rock he sat on as he looked over the basic plan that Nicolas had created of his staff, "I know that I'm not going to be changing the part below the handle, but what do these rune patterns do?"

Flamel hummed thoughtfully and leaned his conjured chair back onto two legs.

"That question has a rather complicated answer, but I will try to explain it as simply as possible." Flamel responded slowly after a seconds' thought.

"The best place to start would be to ask ourselves 'What does a staff actually do?'."

A moment later, Harry realized that Nicolas was waiting for an answer.

"A staff creates a link to local leylines and diverts the power of those leylines up the staff and into various magics based on the will of the wielder." Harry hurriedly recited.

"Exactly." Nicolas said with an approving nod, "Local leyline _s_. Emphasis on that 'S'. That's a key distinction to note- You don't know much about how leylines work correct? You haven't done any reading about them on your own?"

Harry shook his head in a negative.

"Well then just keep that distinction in mind while I give some background." Nicolas flicked his wrist and wandlessly summoned a book from his backpack, opening it to show Harry a world-wide leyline map.

"Leylines are flows of energy contained within the earth." Nicolas began in a lecturing tone, "Where and why they occur is unknown, but their properties are well documented. The weakest and most common type of leylines remain just beneath the surface and contain mere trickles of magic, while the strongest and rarest leylines typically remain deep in the earth and contain seemingly boundless currents of energy."

"When two leylines cross, the deeper and stronger leyline pushes the other upward, towards the surface. The weaker leylines are typically the only ones pushed high enough to be readily harnessed, and they put out only a small amount of magic. The amount of magic they put out is too small to do anything substantial with directly; such as powering a staff. These weak, and at first glance seemingly useless, leylines are what wizards refer to as 'local' leylines. Of course, staves clearly do work, so the question becomes 'How?' If there is not enough power available out from most surface leylines to power a staff then how does a staff get enough power to function? The answer is simple: combine the power of more than one leyline."

"Rather than struggling to spread the tiny trickle of power in a _single_ local leyline far enough to do something useful, staff designers create a basic pattern that relies on the natural 'pull' of dryad wood on leylines to temporarily pull _multiple_ local leylines together at the base of the staff, allowing the runes to siphon up far more energy than would normally be available in a given location. The rune pattern acts like a river, where hundreds of tiny channels slowly combine and fuse to eventually form a mighty flow with far greater power than the sources."

"The number of 'channels' on a staff (and thus the size of the rune columns at the bottom since they're all at the same level) is based on how much power the wizard can handle, while the actual shape of those lower rune sequences that form the 'channels' is based on how the wizard consciously and subconsciously control their own magic. That is why a wizard is intimately involved in carving their own staff; by doing so they allow their subconscious to superficially edit the runes to fit their control-style better. This is more personalization of execution than customization of the design however, since different wizards will have different magical signatures even if they decide on using the same lower rune sequence design. Actual customization involves altering the rune sequence design to fit it specifically for one persons' use."

"It is a common misconception that rune masters _always_ create totally customized staves. Gifted runemasters _can_ create or customize the lower rune sequences, but they usually do not because the gains are very limited compared to the time required to design it. Unless a rune master wishes to wring every ounce of power they can out of a staff for one reason or another, they typically just select whichever standardized lower sequence fits them the best and then edit the number of columns in the design appropriately before carving and personalizing it. The important and unavoidable customization is in the runes that must appear above the grip."

"The section above the grip is why only rune masters attempt to make staves. The single ring of runes above the handle must mirror the life, personality, and magic of the user closely, while still being limited to _exactly_ the number of rune columns below the handle. This means that if a staff has three columns that reach the bottom of the handle, the runemaster must use _exactly_ three runes in connecting and mirroring the personality of the user above it. If these runes do not mirror the users' personality and magic exactly enough, the staff will either fail catastrophically, thus wasting extremely valuable dryad wood, or the power molded by the staff will be uncontrollable unless overpowered by a wizard of much greater power than the one it was designed for."

"It isn't that the staff itself is difficult to produce, on the contrary, even a first year ancient runes student could carve a staff correctly, but it is incredibly difficult to condense your entire personality down to a few symbols while trying to be completely honest about your flaws and vices. Runemasters are the only ones who attempt to create a staff since they can more accurately determine nuances of meaning within individual runes that might increase their chances of success, and the cost of failure is far too high to allow amateurs to attempt. Even ignoring the cost of failure, some people have difficulty accepting the correct runes."

Harry digested this as Nicolas' tone started to become excited and he began to speak more quickly.

"Wunjo, for example. It means joy, pleasure, and harmony, which most people want to be something which defines them… right up until they realize that when taken to an extreme it can also result in being irresponsible, overly hedonistic, and possessing uncontrollable emotions. Nobody wants to be associated with the second set of definitions, but if a person who is defined by being overly joyful and willing to experience pleasures is totally honest with themselves, they'll have to admit that least the _potential_ for the darker side lurks within them even if it hasn't come to the surface. The problem isn't in picking out good traits, the problem is in accepting the bad ones. Then there are societal stigmas muddling up affairs as well."

"Wizards usually don't like eliminating uruz, kenaz, and gebo, since they have links to magic or magical power. What modern wizard wants to admit that having lots of magic _isn't_ the most central thing in their life and personality? It's viewed like an admission that they would be the same person even if they didn't have magic, which our society pounds over and over into their heads _couldn't_ be possible, _can't_ be possible, since that would mean that people are all the inherently the same, and thus equal."

Flamels' voice practically dripped with sarcasm and derision as he started to rant.

"And clearly muggles and squibs _can't_ be as 'civilized' as we mighty and powerful wizards. We absolutely _must_ protect our precious traditions of discrimination, slavery, corruption and slander from the 'uncivilized invaders' that are the muggleborns… the _mudbloods_. Those nasty mudbloods simply _must_ be uncouth and uncivilized and stupid since they came from the mud and filth of…" Nicolas paused dramatically before hissing the final words, "… _the_ _muggles_. There is no way _muggles_ have anything to offer our glorious utopia of a society, so why would those who grew up with them have anything?"

"Muggle. Squib. Weakling." Flamel said these words blandly, but with a prevailing sense of sadness, "These labels are sadly viewed as conditions to look on with either pity or distaste in our current society, which makes 'throwing away' runes which have connections to the ability or control of magic extremely difficult to stomach for most. Some rune masters can't handle dissecting their personality this way and hire a master Legilimencer to dive their mind and pick out a few runes that more or less match what they find. This method doesn't produce nearly as good results as whittling down the number of runes yourself through a lot of soul-searching and research, but some people feel that it's worth it to not have to crush their self-delusions and preconceptions."

There was silence in the clearing for a moment before Flamel sighed.

"God, why did I ever leave France?" He groaned before pausing thoughtfully, "Oh right, I fixed government of magical France with that bloody revolution and wanted a new challenge."

"Sorry Harry," Flamel apologized after he realized Harry was still there, "I got a little off-track there at the end…"

"Hmm-mm." Harry hummed negatively as he shook his head, "It was interesting. But now I have another question. If it takes a rune master to complete the top part, then how am I going to do it?"

Nicolas smiled his shark-like and slightly insane researcher smile.

"That's where I figured out a clever little workaround. The whole problem is in self-delusion and refusing to accept the correct runes. The nuances are somewhat important, but mostly they act as excuses for the runemasters to pick the runes they should have chosen in the first place without looking bad to their peers. However, you have the ability to figure out the truth without worrying about lying to yourself so you needn't worry about that. It's such a simple and revolutionary solution to the problem of needing a runes mastery to create a staff that I can't imagine how I didn't see it before: Soul meditation!"

Harry's eyes widened with realization and Nicolas _cackled_.

"I know right?! It's difficult, but it's much simpler than spending ten or fifteen years becoming a true runes master, yet nobody ever thought of combing those two processes! Everyone has always considered soul meditation to be an interesting but mostly useless side-branch of Occulumency prospective animagi need to dabble in, but it could be a breakthrough in producing staves! You, and hopefully those we eventually share it with, will need to 'borrow' someones' mastery-level knowledge of rune interactions to arrange them in the least conflicting pattern, but actually picking them out would be child's-play! I've already picked out a lower pattern for you as you can see, and I'll bet you'll be able to determine the proper runes for the top in a few hours or a day at most as opposed to the months of soul-searching it normally takes!"

Nicolas _vibrated_ with excitement as he continued.

"I chose a more fire-inclined lower sequence for you for obvious reasons, and I chose fourty-nine columns for the starting base of your staff. This is a bit more than double the number in a normal wizard's staff. Most wizards usually choose a twenty-one column pattern, but with your experience with using large amounts of power you should be able to handle the larger load; which will give you a vital edge."

"The runes in the fourty-nine columns are small enough that you'll need to use magical tools to carve them correctly. However, by the time they've reached most of the way up the staff there will be a mere seven columns left, each containing the power of seven leylines. You should be able to carve those directly if you want to. Fourty-nine or seven sevens of leylines with seven columns is more powerful numerologically than twenty-one or three sevens of leylines with three or seven columns, but again, you should be able to handle it."

"The arithmetical and numerology effects of the seven columns and seven leylines on the runes are actually far more interesting than three and seven because-" "Dad!" Harry yelled, finally managing to interrupt the rambling man after his second attempt.

Flamel blinked and then cleared his throat, embarrassed.

"A-anyway, you'll need to pick seven runes for yours. I'd recommend reading this-" he summoned another book and tossed it to Harry after tapping it with a very subtle twitch of his finger, "-to whittle down the number a bit so that you don't have to spend as much time considering runes that are completely wrong for your personality. Since I'll be worrying about the interactions, you won't have to read those parts, but it's still nice to lower the amount of research you need to do."

Harry flipped the book over.

"The Basics of Ancient Runes for… Oi! What's with this?!" Harry looked at the book, aghast. "It actually says 'for Plebeians like Harry' in the title! What am I, a legendary barbarian?"

"It is not my fault you're one of the uneducated proletariat." Flamel declared with a dismissive wave, "I am working on fixing that, but it is slow going. The master craftsman is always limited by his materials after all."

Nicolas managed to hold his dour expression firm until Harry broke down into laughter, which caused his stern look to morph into a smile as he chuckled.

"That was payback for me calling you old wasn't it?" Harry eventually said between fits of laughter.

"I couldn't let something like that go unanswered, now could I?" Flamel responded, neatly sidestepping the question.

* * *

"This one is definitely wrong." Harry murmured quietly to himself from his seat on Werlea's lap several hours later as he exited yet another short meditative trance.

"What?" Werlea asked as her ears caught his comment, tilting her head to the side in confusion and stopping her petting of his hair as she examined the rune on the page, "I'm no expert, but it looks right to me."

Perenelle looked up from her book at this comment.

"That's not what I meant." Harry responded with determination, "It's written correctly, but the meaning of it is all wrong. I just checked in my meditation. I skipped over some of the runes before that I thought didn't fit me as well and now I'm going over them more thoroughly since I have two spots that are empty. This one just happens to be wrong for me, not that I thought it was right anyway."

"What's wrong about it?" Werlea inquired, going back to fiddling with his hair. Harry paused in thought for a moment before flipping back through the book rapidly, eventually finding the correct page.

"See that?" He asked, pointing to the rune he had located.

Werlea glanced at it and nodded.

"That rune is Sowilo. Dad told me that it's a rune that fit me so I looked at it first when I started looking for runes to match my personality. I agree with him, it fits me nicely. Just listen,"

Harry began reading parts of the definitions, interspacing his own comments throughout.

"Sowilo means sun, but it also means sword of flame or cutting through darkness, which is more applicable to me considering my magic. It can mean success or victory over evil, which most people would think was right for me considering the 'defeat' of Tom at my hand, but it also has the opposite definition of false success and retribution, which is actually _more_ apt considering that the bastard isn't totally dead yet and I intend to end him. A more complex definition can even imply mental unity of a sort through-" Harry shuffled forward a few pages and quoted directly, "-'contact with the higher self and unconscious' which is rather vague and might or might not have anything to do with me."

He set the book down and shifted to look up at Werlea as he spoke.

"There are also hundreds of variations on each of those definitions, like 'sun' could actually mean the literal center of solar system or just 'center' or 'central'. 'Sword of flame' can refer to a literal flaming sword or sword that is made out of flame, or perhaps something metaphorical as in my case: flames that I use as my sword. It might even refer to something even older than the runes themselves, like the flaming sword God set at the entrance to Eden, which could mean something like 'guardian of the unattainable'."

"You can sometimes even combine definitions to make totally new meanings: 'sword of flame' and 'cuts through darkness' can mix to mean 'sword which burns the darkness' or 'cleansing flame', which has a different spin than either of the first two definitions. The whole thing is extremely complex, that's why there aren't more rituals around- you need to have an almost instinctive understanding for what each rune actually _means_ to keep them from conflicting and ruining the effect of the ritual you're designing or from blowing up in your face."

"Right now I'm supposed to be finding seven runes that match my personality and magic. I've chosen five, but I'm having trouble deciding the last two. I think it might be because I don't know the right questions to consider."

"Which ones do you have so far?" Perenelle asked curiously, "Nicolas and I might be able to help you narrow down the last two. We do know you the best and having an outside perspective sometimes helps."

Harry shrugged, "Sure. The ones I have decided on so far are sowilo, kenaz, uruz, thurisaz, and nauthiz."

"The sun, a torch, a wild ox, a thorn, and necessity." Perenelle translated, "I can see your reasoning for all of them except uruz. The wild ox mainly revolves around physical potential and health, although it does have links to wild magic. Judging from how your parents looked, you are probably not going to be a giant of a man, nor do I think you fit the 'unchained' nature of the rune since you are studious and even-tempered for a young boy. Why did you pick uruz?"

Harry felt a little shame as he mumbled the answer.

"What was that?" Perenelle asked with a raised eyebrow, leaning forwards as she closed and put her book aside, "Did you say that you picked uruz because you were obsessed?"

Harry nodded slowly.

"What else would you call how I feel about Tom?" Harry said in a hopeless tone, "One of the motives driving me to work so hard is my desire to kill him with my own hands and making him suffer while I do it Mum. If that doesn't match the merkstave definitions of uruz, namely 'obsession', 'brutality', 'callousness', and 'violence', then I don't know what does! I certainly have those in spades with reference to _Him_ , and with the power I have at my fingertips applying those traits to others would be so _easy_ to do if I got really angry."

Perenelle moved over to Werlea, who had started soothing the distraught boy.

"Harry," she murmured, pulling him into a gentle hug, "The runes just indicate a _potential_ for those traits if you overindulge in any one aspect of them. The capacity for violence doesn't mean those are core parts of your personality. Would you torture Tom over and over making sure he didn't die?"

"No!" Harry recoiled, repulsed. "I just want to kill him, I don't want to torture him! At least, not much…"

"Then you probably aren't brutal or violent enough to use those as defining characteristics." Perenelle declared easily. "Acknowledging your darker instincts and flaws is fine, but be sure you do not force the definition of the rune to fit you. Irrespective of what your flaws are though, when you do acknowledge those darker instincts be sure to direct them properly. Killing monsters and fighting evil isn't wrong, but attacking innocent people is. Make sure your actions are always _right_ and you'll not have a problem."

"Is not letting my anger get away from me the same thing as directing my instincts? Dad said that it was okay to let my anger go, but he didn't say anything about directing it."

"Not really," Perenelle said thoughtfully. "Nicolas was referring to letting your emotions go in order to keep a clear head. He disagrees with me on the necessity of acknowledging your primal instincts since his personality is more suited to solving a situation subtly. Nicolas still does act on his emotions, he just carefully considers how best to do so before acting instead of moving in accordance with his immediate instincts. He is an observer at heart. A scientist. Patient and subtle solutions are his bread and butter, while going off and stomping the problem into the ground is my solution. To use Hogwarts terms, he's a Slytherin in battle while I'm a Gryffindor."

She giggled, "Most of the time Nick is more like a Ravenclaw though, what with his excitement at discovering new things and new ideas. I am more of a Hufflepuff myself."

Harry relaxed a bit as he realized that she wasn't going to yell or be disappointed at him for being a bad person. He began to feel incredibly silly about the whole thing when he suddenly remembered that Nicolas had gone over the 'potential' for the darker side point earlier.

"Anyway," Perenelle said, waving a hand, "what flaws uruz might or might not imply doesn't matter since, to go back to my original thought, I do not think uruz is a good fit for you at all."

"You don't?" Harry asked in surprise.

"No, I don't." Perenelle said, smiling. "I think your 'obsession', as you so bluntly put it, is more of a focus on just retribution than any proclivity towards obsessing over gaining strength. He harmed you terribly and you wish to even the scales. On top of that, you don't let your strength define you, which is a very large part of the meaning of the rune."

"You focused on a single definition without looking at the overall picture. Uruz more properly means 'strength' and 'masculinity'. I don't know what you should replace it with, but I would say that you should ignore the term 'obsession' and look rather at what your obsession is actually about: justice. You have already gotten a start on that by using sowilo, but you need to look at your 'obsession' in a more positive light. I would personally suggest looking at eihwaz and tiwaz."

"Eihwaz would help represent the drive to succeed that your 'obsession' gives you, as well as your belief that your goals are reasonable and attainable. It also dovetails nicely with the fact that your magic is more inclined to defense than offense, which you touched on using thurisaz. Your focus on your goal will probably cause you troubles after you complete it, which takes care of the negative aspects of the rune: confusion and dissatisfaction."

"Tiwaz again indicates your clear desire for justice (or vengeance) and rationality, which you have already noted using sowilo and kenaz. From your conversation earlier with Nicolas regarding your disappointment with your ranged alchemy, I would say that you are already well on the road to 'knowing where your strengths lie', which is another link to tiwaz. The negative aspects are clearly covered under the same conditions as eihwaz- when you complete your goal, you will need to find something else to do before you sink into brooding."

Werlea nodded. "Yeah. Losing your purpose in life would be terrible. I think you should spend some of your time looking for other causes and people to fight or fight for so that when you get done with this 'Tom' guy you won't be bored."

"I… hadn't thought about what I would do after I killed Tom," Harry admitted. "Now that you've pointed it out I can see your point. I'll have to check those two runes with a bit of meditation, but I think you might be right, those runes probably fit me even if I didn't see it before."

"Sowilo, kenaz, thurisaz, nauthiz, eihwaz, and tiwaz." Harry murmured as he considered the list, "The sun, a torch, a thorn, necessity, a yew tree, and the sky god."

"A very just and combat-oriented list, with the possibility for great harm if abused." Perenelle said after a moment's consideration, "'I wish to battle evil with a righteous sword of flame, and I will overcome any obstacles to that goal' would be a reasonable way to phrase your list as a full sentence."

"So cute! You're like a little hero!" Werlea squealed happily, "Are you going to get a white horse and a sword too and sweep me off my feet to carry me off?"

Harry looked to her with concern, "Why? Is your leg hurt?"

Werlea, speechless, failed to respond to Perenelle's sudden fit of giggles at the look of disbelief on her face and the curious and innocent one on Harrys'.

* * *

"Girls are strange." Harry stated several hours later as he finally located Nicolas in a clearing, busily focusing on making a potion.

"You say that now," Nicolas responded with a grin, "but eventually you'll come around."

Harry hummed doubtfully.

"Now I bet you didn't come just to tell me that, so what do you need?" Flamel asked, keeping his eyes on the potion.

"I've gotten six of the seven runes I need and Mum told me to come and ask you for advice on the last one." Harry peered into the cauldron as he continued, "I may be able to be totally honest with myself, but if I don't know what questions to ask I can't answer them. So far I've chosen sowilo, kenaz, thurisaz, nauthiz, eihwaz, and tiwaz for my runes."

"Honor and justice… for your goal of killing an evil man I assume," Flamel murmured even as he kept adding ingredients. "Fire and inspiration… for your magic and what you need to learn magic. Reactive defense and cleansing fire… clearly for your magic. Overcoming challenges and desire- no- _need_ to succeed… for the problems you face with your magic and your difficult goal. Dependability and defense… again facets that your magic is better at but with links to your personality too. Justice and rationality… certainly things you have to temper that inspiration and fiery drive.

Flamel stopped stirring and scrunched up his brow.

"You've gotten your general personality and magic more or less covered, but what about more untested aspects of your personality?" Nicolas asked slowly, "You feel drawn to storms, so why not use that? Hagalaz refers to storms and natural disasters and tempering yourself through trials to achieve your goals. It will tie into tiwaz for the sky and thurisaz for the regenerative aspects of the phoenix magic you haven't been able to control yet."

Harry nodded.

It did seem like a reasonable option to look at again.

* * *

Harry sighed with relief as he floated out of his latest meditation trance. He was well and truly done with making his list.

' _Almost a full day,'_ Harry evaluated with slight dismay, _'I can't imagine how long that would have taken if I had to figure out my personality from the outside.'_

Sowilo, kenaz, thurisaz, nauthiz, eihwaz, tiwaz, and hagalaz.

Harry opened his eyes and blinked as he took in the empty clearing. He sighed again.

Now he had to go track down Nicolas again.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

I'm sorry if the pacing for this chapter sucks or if the chapter itself bores you, but I needed to write a section dedicated to the creation of Harry's staff since it's going to be around for a while. I couldn't figure out how to put the necessary information into just _one_ part of a chapter without it leaking into the rest of that chapter, so I decided to make the whole chapter about staff creation and world-building.

I will not be going nearly this in-depth into runes ever again due to the headaches involved, instead I'll just say 'they carved featherweight runes' or 'he prepared the ritual'- Sorry, for those of you who actually enjoyed the rune explanations.

Don't bother nitpicking the runes in the comments section, I won't be changing any of them unless I'm totally and completely wrong on their meaning, since the purpose of this section (aside from the whole 'gets staff' thing) was more to give some insight into Harry's personality and provide some light foreshadowing than create any sort of 'real' magical effect.

He's driven to work hard by the loss of his family and his ambition to see justice for them (he remembers that night due to his early occulumency formation), and he is starting to see that he needs to find something beyond Voldemort to work towards **rant starts here** (which was one thing I hated in the original HP books, Harry drops everything whenever something comes up about Voldy and then he just expects it to all be ok in the end. Granted, it is ok in the end, but that's more because of plot armor than from any real effort on his part... case in point: got into the Aurors without NEWTS despite poor marks throughtout schooling and he got a rabid fangirl set aside for him to marry despite minimal interaction with her in the books). **end rant here**

So, again, sorry if the chapter bores you, it was necessary.

On the upside for those of you who dislike my pacing problems, there's only one, or at most two, more chapters until Hogwarts, where I'll have plenty of story 'landmarks' to pace myself by.


	10. Chapter 9: A Light in her Darkness

**Chapter 9**

* * *

"…and can you tell me what sort of magic is on the entrance to the platform?" the older man asked calmly, ignoring the odd looks he got from the passing travelers for both staring at a brick wall between platforms nine and ten with clear interest and for having a white owl perched on his head regally.

"In order," The black haired boy replied, now also staring at the wall and leaning on the staff he carried, "The answers are 'Ambient magic concentrated in magic reservoirs' and 'Of course I can, who do you think you're talking to?'."

Harry gave a laugh as he glanced back to see Nicolas' face twitch slightly, "I'm just joking- give me a few seconds to figure it out."

Harry stepped forwards, adjusting his glasses before closing his eyes and running a hand over the bricks, following the invisible lines of magic.

' _It's not an illusion-'_ Harry figured to himself, _'-there isn't actually anything active here until the magic recognition ward triggers… a gate? No, that's not right… more like a portal? Yes, that's closer… a portal to a pocket of subspace. It can't be like the mouth of an undetectable extension charm though, since…'_

"Hmm" Harry hummed to himself as he concentrated on sensing the twists in the magic.

'… _the opening isn't really an opening is it? The portal is actually a continuous teleportation array to that subspace pocket but it's underneath the surface of the bricks. The bricks just turn intangible for a few seconds as the students and their luggage walk through the stones covering the array.'_

Harry opened his eyes as he spoke to Nicolas, his hand still drifting around the wall.

"It's a teleportation array coupled with a subspace shift rather than an actual 'entrance', isn't it? The platform isn't actually in this station."

His eyes widened as he made another connection. "That must be why those redheads from before were telling the youngest two to run through! Because piecemeal teleportation feels terrible if it happens too slowly!"

"Correct. Not too bad." Nicolas said with an approving nod, "You need to pick up on your speed a little, but that comes with experience. That was a nice connection you made to the Weaslys' comments- I missed that myself. Now go through. We still need to do the last check to make sure you have everything before you get on the train."

"Sure dad." Harry rolled his eyes as he adjusted his grip on thehis staff and started to push the trolley, "It's not like we haven't gone through the checklist Mom gave us twice already- once before we left home and once after we arrived out front of the station."

The pair walked through the barrier, appearing inside the bustling hubbub of platform nine-and-three-quarters as Nicolas snorted and grinned.

"After nearly ten years with us I would be more surprised if you _didn't_ have her pegged." His expression softened, "She really did want to be here, but there was an emergency at Gringotts and one of us needed to go and sort out the mess. I just won the coin toss. I'll actually be going over to help her after I see you off."

They approached the train together and Harry turned to ask Nicolas to cast a featherweight on the trunk when he saw the man pull a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"Wait, you were serious?" Harry asked with incredulity, eyeing the paper.

"No, I'm Sirius." Sirius chuckled, sideling out of the crowd with the impeccable timing of a master prankster. "Hey Prongslet."

"It's not funny Sirius!" Harry complained, causing Sirius to merely grin as he continued. "We went over the list together not ten minutes ago! I have everything I could conceivably need!"

"Perenelle?" Sirius asked Nicolas with a raised eyebrow.

"Perenelle." Nicolas sighed in response before turning back to Harry, "Let's just get it over with so we both don't get yelled at for being complacent. 'Constant Vigilance' right?"

Sirius went pale and ducked, looking around wildly and causing the other two males to glance at him in confusion.

"Yeah, Constant Vigilance." Harry grumbled, causing Sirius to spasm violently. "Fine, let's go over it. Again."

"We'll make it fast- let's just do the big categories." Nicolas conceded easily, "If it's only one or two things I'll be able to mail them to you or you'll be able to owl-order them in."

"Fine." Harry sighed.

"Staff?"

Harry rolled his eyes and thumped the ground with the ceramic-cased black staff once, causing Nicolas and a recovering Sirius to snort.

"Sword?"

"Yep."

"Clothes?"

"Yeah."

"Ink, Parchment, Quills and-" Nicolas leaned in and spoke quietly, "-the fountain pens that you definitely don't have since the School Board banned them?"

"Yeah." Harry said, this time fighting a grin. Those fountain pens would make his homework many times easier since he wouldn't have to worry about dripping ink everywhere out of a poorly-cut quill tip. "As are my schoolbooks, potions' ingredients, and the cheap wand that I won't be using except for meeting the requirement to have one."

"Emergency broom that you again, don't have?"

"Bottom of the trunk, under everything else."

Harry shuddered. He didn't want to know how excited his yearmates would be if they found out he had a broom. Quidditch fans were crazier than football fans during the World Cup!

"Extra reading and the homework schedule I drew up for it?"

"Yeah."

"Emergency pack?"

Harry snorted.

"Yep. I still don't think I need any of it though. I seriou-" Harry's eyes flicked to Sirius, " _sincerely_ doubt that I'll get into any situation bad enough to warrant using any of that stuff."

"That mirror I gave you?" Sirius interjected.

"Yeah, right on top of everything else so I can talk to you tonight."

"Your House heir rings?" Nicolas continued.

"House Potter is on my finger." Harry said bluntly, raising a hand and causing the ring in question to fade into and then out of visibility, "Slytherin and Peverell are in that lockbox you gave me along with copies of my important documents."

The whistle on the train blew, spurring Harry into a flurry of movement as he struggled to lift his trunk into the closest car as quickly as he could while juggling his staff and Hedwig's cage. A quick featherweight charm by Nicolas nearly sent Harry sprawling backwards as he straightened suddenly under the lighter load and almost leapt up the stairs.

"Oh! Almost forgot!" Nicolas yelped as Harry turned to enter the compartment, digging a brown envelope from his pocket and handing it to Harry. "Give this to the headmaster please. He said he wanted to take me up on an offer I gave him earlier and since you were already going that way I figured I'd save myself a trip."

Nicolas smirked.

"Do keep an eye on what he does with it will you?"

"But what is it?" Harry asked, frowning as the train started to move oh so slowly.

"Why don't you try and figure out?" Nicolas smirked, "I know how you love puzzles- just be sure to keep me updated on whatever goes on in the castle! And if you need anything, just send Hedwig with a letter."

Harry heard Nicolas call quickly as the train accelerated out of the station. "And don't get yourself killed! Constant Vigilance! Perenelle would kill _me_ if anything happened to you!"

Harry stuck a thumbs up out the door as the train left the station.

Harry hummed in curiosity, bouncing the package in his hand as he weighed it for a moment before tucking it away in a pocket. He'd focus on it later, if his classes were too boring.

For now he just had to find a compartment.

* * *

Nicolas turned back to Sirius and eyed the pale and twitching man.

He opened his mouth to ask the question he had been growing more and more curious about when Alastor Moody apparated in, screamed "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!", shot a stinging spell at Sirius' bum (which Sirius barely managed to deflect) and disapparated out.

Nicolas blinked, then asked a different question than he had originally planned to.

"Moody has heard that you are on track to be the next Senior Auror appointee, I take it?"

"Yes," moaned Sirius, "and he thinks I need 'toughing up'."

* * *

Luna sat in her compartment and stared blankly at the wall.

' _Daddy sent me away. He sent me away.'_ Her thoughts echoed over and over as she struggled not to cry.

Oh, she knew the real reason _why_ she was being sent to Hogwarts this year and she could, quite frankly, agree intellectually that going to Hogwarts this year instead of the next would provide more monitoring and professional care than staying in an empty house, but she just couldn't accept it emotionally.

Luna was firmly of the belief that, while her father had the right motives, he hadn't quite thought all the way through what sending her off to Hogwarts implied.

' _Mummy sent me away.'_ Her traitorous thoughts whispered, _'And look what happened when I went.'_

No, she couldn't accept that she just needed a change of scenery and new friends to help break her out of the depression and shock. She had fully believed her mother when she promised to 'Be right behind you', and she had walked out of the magical gateway her mother had created in the absolute certainty that her mother would be following.

She couldn't accept that the memory of watching her mother scream in agony and dissolve into a pile of dust after she obeyed her mothers' command to 'Go' would just go away with some new food and a few lectures a day to distract her.

She wanted to stay with her father and continue her mother's work, studying the creatures they had managed to attract to their house over the years that only the pair of them could see.

She wanted to go on the expeditions they had always taken as a family, looking for those creatures in their natural environment.

She wanted to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and interview it for the Quibbler.

She wanted to help her father piece together the real news that he would then hide inside their paper under the guise of lunacy- the Rotfang Conspiracy, code for Lucius Malfoy's continual bribery and attempt to control the population by controlling what the Minister said- the Aquavirius Maggots, a DOM invention invented and designed to provide completely truthful answers to questions for court interrogations in leu of Veritaserum (and summarily buried in red tape by several interested criminal parties, again including Lucius Malfoy) and many others.

She wanted her Daddy to hold her tight and promise to never leave.

Luna looked down at her copy of the Quibbler, trying not to cry. It was the last copy her mother had helped write before the _Accident_. She heard the door open and glanced up.

Then she gaped in disbelief.

The person who had entered the compartment _shone_ with power and fire and light.

' _That's a heliopath.'_ Luna's mind provided dumbly, comparing what she saw to her memories.

' _Mummy talked about seeing one once in China during one of our trips, she said that the one she saw seemed very lonely, even though he was surrounded by people at the time. She said that none of the people in the crowd actually saw him, they saw somebody else.'_

Luna eyed the boy for a moment.

He didn't seem like he was anybody besides himself, but he was definitely lonely.

She could fix that.

She smiled, basking for a moment in the warm feeling that seemed to radiate off of the heliopath like a star, even if the heliopath did seem to be slightly banking his flames with wariness and caution.

' _Maybe I can continue Mummy's work of investigating all the creatures we could see at Hogwarts… maybe he would let me interview him? He'll make a great new friend either way.'_

Maybe Hogwarts wouldn't be so bad after all… even if he wasn't a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

* * *

The first two compartments were a bust, the first filled with prefects and the second with a bunch of sleeping upperclassmen, but the third compartment only had a single occupant. The waif-like blond seemed focused on the front cover of her newspaper (which was upside-down) and was certainly small enough to be a member of his own year, but she seemed to have some sort of undefinable weight around her that made her seem far older than her physic seemed to suggest… although that weight was seemingly mitigated by a pair of radish earrings and a cork necklace.

"Excuse me, can I sit in here?" Harry asked as he opened the door.

The blond looked up, then raised her eyebrows slightly in an expression of surprised interest as a faint smile slowly crossed her face, seeming to lift the melancholy she had been oozing.

"I don't know." She said with a curious head-tilt, "Do heliopaths have problems sitting on chairs? Or perhaps only combustible ones?"

Harry blinked at that, struggling to decipher the far longer answer than the 'Yes' or 'No' he had been expecting.

"Er- I don't know what a heliopath is... and I actually meant to ask ' _May_ I sit here?'" Harry said, stressing the word change.

"A heliopath is a spirit of fire," The odd blond explained as she watched him with silver eyes, "and you seem to be one, even if you are stuck in human form at the moment. Do you think we could be friends?"

"Sure?" Harry hazarded after a moment's pause, deciding to take the offer of friendship as an okay to move his trunk into the compartment and sit down. After stowing his luggage he sat and faced the girl, who appeared to find him far more fascinating than her magazine.

Harry suddenly realized that she was looking **AT** him in a way that was somehow more real than the manner that most people looked at him. Most people saw 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' when Harry introduced himself but Harry realized, in that moment, that she seemed to really see 'just Harry' instead of 'The-Boy-Who-Lived', exactly like Sirius, Nick, and Perenelle did.

They each spent a further few moments examining the other before Harry finally decided to break the silence.

"If we are going to be friends," Harry started cautiously, "I think you should introduce yourself. You haven't told me your name yet."

"Oh my, where are my manners? My name is Luna Lovegood Mr. Heliopath." The girl said airily, picking up a bag from the floor and starting to root through it.

"Maybe I left them at home?" She hummed after a few moments of digging.

Harry laughed.

"I don't think you can leave your manners behind like that. I think they sort of go with you wherever you go, like your hands."

She looked at him with something like surprise.

"Daddy always says that I should never give someone a hand because they might walk off with it."

Harry's face split into a responding grin.

"I suppose that he also says that if your head wasn't screwed on you'd lose it too?"

She nodded with a tiny, near unnoticeable twitch at the corner of her mouth, signaling a hidden smile that Harry would never have noticed if he hadn't been matching her stare with his own.

"Exactly. Now… what's your name?"

Harry blinked.

And then blinked again.

"You don't know who I am?"

She shook her head.

"Then why did you ask to be friends with me before I even sat down?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Because you seemed lonely, because I don't know anybody at Hogwarts this year and wanted a friend, and because I wanted to interview you about other heliopaths." She responded happily.

Harry sat, slightly bewildered as he watched her speak and realized that she was telling nothing but truth.

"You want to interview me…" Harry started slowly, prompting Luna to nod, "…not about Voldemort or my life…" Another nod, "…but about these heliopath things instead?"

Her head bobbed in confirmation.

He… hadn't expected that.

He had expected everyone to merely want to be by him for his fame, money, power, or some combination, and he had already resigned himself to that fact.

After all, almost everyone he met started fawning all over him as soon as they heard his name, requesting marriage contracts, political support, donations, and anything and everything else they could think of.

"My name is Harry Potter." Harry said carefully, praying for her next words to not be the sycophantic drivel he usually got.

She blinked, then spoke.

"I think there's another boy coming to Hogwarts this year with that name, it will be very confusing if the two of you are in the same class."

Harry gaped dumbly for a moment, then smiled at her as a sudden and unexpected feeling of happiness caused a warm feeling to surge in his stomach.

The blond-haired girl blinked and squinted, as though the sun had suddenly appeared from behind some clouds and nearly blinded her with its' intensity.

"I think I'll enjoy being friends with you." Harry said, smiling at his first real friend.

* * *

Harry sighed with minor exasperation and worry and began rubbing his headache away as he stood in the entrance hall, waiting for the sorting to begin.

' _Fighting a troll? Really? Do none of these people have any concept of how low the entry level requirements of this school are?'_ Harry thought sarcastically, eyeing the crowd, which appeared to be growing more and more uneasy as the redheaded boy continued talking about what his brothers had told him about the 'sorting test'.

' _How can they expect a muggleborn to keep up with a class four magical creature? No, they won't be making us fight trolls. Maybe they'll ask us to perform an entry-level spell? I'm a bit worried that they'll do that and I'll fail though because of my fire. I wonder what happens if somebody does fail the sorting? Is there a House for-'_

A sudden shriek yanked him from his thoughts, causing him to whirl around and see a few ghosts floating through the back wall disregarding them instantly as a threat and continuing to scan for enemies.

After a few moments, he realized that they were afraid of the ghosts, rather than any real threat, and he snorted.

They had just proven his first point. If they couldn't even deal with ghosts, then how could that redheaded boy expect them to deal with a twelve-foot high lump of muscle and bone?

Professor McGonagall appeared, leading them into the main hall just in time for a hat to start singing.

 _Oh you may not think I'm pretty,_  
 _But don't judge on what you see,_  
 _I'll eat myself if you can find_  
 _A smarter hat than me._

 _You can keep your bowlers black,  
Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_  
 _And I can cap them all._

 _There's nothing hidden in your head_  
 _The Sorting Hat can't see,_  
 _So try me on and I will tell you_  
 _Where you ought to be._

 _You might belong in Gryffindor,_  
 _Where dwell the brave at heart,_  
 _Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_  
 _Set Gryffindors apart;_

 _You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal,_  
 _Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_  
 _And unafraid of toil;_

 _Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
if you've a ready mind,_  
 _Where those of wit and learning,_  
 _Will always find their kind;_

 _Or perhaps in Slytherin  
You'll make your real friends,_  
 _Those cunning folks use any means_  
 _To achieve their ends._

 _So put me on! Don't be afraid!_  
 _And don't get in a flap!_  
 _You're in safe hands (though I have none)_  
 _For I'm a Thinking Cap!_

Harry grinned.

Nicolas had been going on incredible fantastical exaggerations about how incredible 'IT' was for so long that he had actually started to believe that it was actually going to be a test of some sort. But he only had to try on a hat? He'd have to prank Nicolas somehow, this inequality couldn't stand!

Professor McGonagall stepped forward, holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes as she sank onto the stool. There was a moment's pause before the hat suddenly screamed: "HUFFLEPUFF!", which spurred the table on the left into cheers and applause as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry noted that a few of the ghosts which had drifted through the entrance hall were now seated at the house tables, and the one at the Hufflepuff table was waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!" "HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boot, Terry!" "RAVENCLAW!"

Harry tuned out the shouts and applause as he examined the hall in greater depth than the combat-ready once-over he had given it when he first entered.

The ceiling was a masterpiece of charmwork, showing the clear evening sky with a clarity that made Harry wonder why they reportedly had classes outside for Astronomy when they could probably set up in this room and remain indoors. Below the ceiling, he noted hundreds of floating candles (which apparently didn't drip wax, judging by the pristine state of the students' dress) lighting a cavernous feast hall with an oddly gothic architectural design, given that the castle had been built nearly two hundred years before gothic architecture became the norm in Europe. There were four tables taking up the majority of the floorspace, with Gryffindor on the far left, Hufflepuff just left of center and Ravenclaw just right of it, and Slytherin on the far right. At the front of the hall there was a head table, seating the majority of the teachers (sans Professor McGonagall) as well as the headmaster.

Harry eyed the man.

' _Old. Probably very old if I take into account the fact that magic slows the signs of aging. His horrible purple robes suggest he's a bit eccentric, and maybe a bit barmy, but perhaps that is just what he wants me to think.'_ Harry evaluated, before turning away and continuing his evaluation of the room.

Grey stone walls descended downwards, meeting a stone floor that-

Harry almost gasped as he felt leyline energy flowing through the floor of the castle. His respect for the the four founders of Hogwarts skyrocketed.

' _They somehow integrated the worked stone of the floor into the natural leylines?!'_ Harry realized with shock, _'I didn't even know that was possible!'_

As he extended his senses outwards through his feet, trying to feel if it was just an illusion or if they had actually fixed one of the biggest flaws of leyline-magic, he vaguely noted that "Lovegood, Luna" was sorted into Ravenclaw.

Several minutes later, a call of "Potter, Harry" shocked him out of his mental explorations and into walking silently for the hat, unhearing of the whispers and pointing that his name generated as his mind whirled with the ramifications of being able to integrate leylines into the floors of buildings.

As the hat settled over his eyes, he shoved his thoughts away under a 'consider later' label and focused on the present.

"Hmmm?" suddenly hummed a small voice in his ear with a tone of surprise, making Harry jump, "How odd…you don't… no, you do, but only part of… maybe it's for the best?"

' _What's for the best?'_ Harry thought hard at the hat. There was a slight hesitation as the hat formulated a response.

"I'm required to give a checkup on whoever comes beneath my brim to make sure that dopplegangers and the like don't get into the castle." The hat said slowly, "You're fine in that regard and plenty healthy, you just happen to be a bit stranger than what I am used to is all. Don't worry about it. I'll get on with the sorting now."

"Er… Could you lower your Occulumency barriers please?" The hat asked sheepishly after a few moments pause. "Normally I don't have to ask since eleven is rather young to develop complete mind shields so I can usually just go through the unfinished areas."

' _You won't tell anyone what you find?'_ Harry sent back.

"No I won't. It's a part of my magic that what I find inside your mind is locked away."

Harry weighed that statement for a moment.

' _If it anything in there gets out I'll incinerate you.'_

The hats' low chuckle died away as the hat flicked through Harry's now unshielded mind quickly.

"Interesting. Plenty of bravery, but not in the sense that Godric meant. Wonderful loyalty to individuals, but very little to groups and almost no sense of fair play. A fine mind and a keen desire to learn, creativity and- Oh? What's this? A deeply rooted ambition and plenty of cunning exploitation of what you have instead of yearning after what you wanted? Determination and a burning need to keep advancing towards your goals?"

The hat considered for a moment before continuing.

"It seems you'd fit well in Ravenclaw, with your drive to learn and your analytical mind, and you'd probably be happier there, but with your focused mindset I can only put you in-"

"SLYTHERIN!" Shouted the hat.

* * *

At long last, the promised chapter comes!

Seriously though, sorry for the wait. Real life hit me with the job-search and delayed it, but it wouldn't have been delayed this long if the scene I had intended on writing had felt right the first time I wrote it.

I had been intending to do a bunch of mini-scenes revolving around Harry's training and adventures, but after I wrote four or five different versions of this chapter and it never felt right I scrapped the whole idea and just skipped straight to Hogwarts.

Luna actually references one of his adventures that I had planned on writing- her mother saw Harry at a distance in China a few years before this scene getting mobbed by a crowd of fans who wanted to meet 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' and labeled him as a heliopath.

I feel I should make an explanation here regarding Lunas' creatures- Pandora and Luna can sense/see souls and emotions as well as a whole range of invisible and intangible species. The ability doesn't actually use their eyes, but it takes up the same 135 degree field of view as sight does- they can 'see' someone coming in total darkness or through walls as long as they're looking that direction.

Unfortunately, a regular human mind is not meant to have a clearly defined and powerful seventh sense in this manner (five normal senses plus a sixth, magical sense for wizards), and it causes some issues for them. Their minds attempt to compensate for the confusing mass the information by hallucinating the souls and emotions as phantasmal creatures.

This causes Pandora to be confused when she couldn't see Harry's physical body because his soul seems different from everybody else's even though he's completely human. Luna just accepts what her mother said as true and immediately re-labeled Harry as a heliopath based on what her mother told her.

(Harry's soul seems to burn like a lower-end star/red dwarf most of the time to them, and when he's pushing out magic or positive emotions his soul lights up like the sun.)

This is why Luna talks to people under invisibility cloaks or polyjuice- you can't design a cloak or potion to conceal yourself from a sense that you don't know about. It's also why she sometimes calls people by odd nicknames- (e.g. 'Umgubular Slashkilter' Dolores Umbridge, 'Old Lion' Rufus Scrimegour, 'Mr. Heliopath' Harry Potter) she sees them as a talking version of that animal rather than as a person with a soul that is that shape… of course, this means that she isn't afraid of large predators… because she's seen some of them that are very nice and invite her for tea.

…the predators are usually confused by this and so they try to ignore the strange girl climbing all over them.

Anyway, I'll try to start posting more often now that I have a job.


	11. Chapter 10: A Slytherin?

**Chapter 10**

* * *

"SLYTHERIN!" shouted the hat.

Harry re-raised his Occlumency barriers and took off the hat, taking two full steps towards the Slytherin table before he noticed the utter silence in the hall.

He paused, taking in the room filled with hundreds of stunned faces before shrugging and continuing onwards to the Slytherin table. He arrived and sat down in a suddenly empty bubble of space on the benches, only to look up to see a ring of Slytherins with shrinking shock and growing anger on their faces before an angry voice suddenly called out into the quiet.

"But… he should be a Gryffindor! …the Slytherins must have tricked the hat!"

A surge of something like agreement rippled through the hall as the atmosphere suddenly became charged with tension, Slytherins on one side turning as one and practically freezing the atmosphere with their disdainful glares at the accusation while the Gryffindors' hotheaded return glares tried to incinerate the Slytherins where they sat.

Harry opened his mouth to respond when a voice interrupted him, causing his eyes to flick up to the head table.

"I highly doubt that Slytherin house had anything to do with this." The headmaster spoke calmly, seemingly amused at the interjection. "The sorting hat can't be fooled or tricked. I imagine that the Slytherins were just as surprised as the rest of us to discover that Harry has taken after his grandmother rather than his mother or father."

After a few seconds, a light smattering of applause began from a select few Slytherins and the staff. The applause quickly grew to encompass the whole hall, however it remained far more subdued than what the kids sorted earlier had.

The tension died quickly with the growing applause, although a few Gryffindors kept glaring at Harry as though he had betrayed them. More interestingly, Harry noted a few whispered conversations springing up at the Slytherin table, and looks more considering than angry started being shot his way.

He was well aware of the political weight his name carried as the 'Boy-Who-Lived', but the intense anger the Slytherins and Gryffindors had shown him for initially for his sorting had been unexpected. Apparently the cultural fracture between 'Good' Gryffindors and 'Bad' Slytherins was far deeper than the books he had read on Wizarding Britain indicated.

He had known that statistically most of Voldemorts' followers came from Slytherin, and he had known that families tended to go into the same house, but he would have thought that most of the pro-Voldemort rhetoric would have been stomped out by now through societal pressure and his greeting would have been wary rather than wrathful.

Apparently not.

Harry sat, watching as the hall quieted and another student walked up to be sorted.

The defensive and unified reaction the Slytherins took on his behalf to the Gryffindors' directed anger was unexpected as well. It seemed they were at least willing to defend him in public at least as a fellow member of the house, even if he was to be ostracized in-house.

He could work with that.

* * *

' _How can I work with this?'_ Dumbledore wondered, frowning as he examined the distant form of the Chosen One and recalculated his plans to guide Harry into fulfilling his destiny _properly_.

It wouldn't do to have Harry defeat Tom just to rise as the next dark lord after all. Fortunately, there was little chance of that.

From the regular updates Nicolas had sent him on Harry's progress in magic (and in spite of the fact that the reports had been sorely lacking in information that would let him make a personality profile of the boy), he had managed to deduce that Harry had been nursing a rather severe grudge against Tom for the past ten years. That suggested that Harry would react badly to anything that made him seem more like Tom. While the hatred itself was slightly concerning, Harry definitely wouldn't follow Tom's path to darkness precisely _because_ he hated the man and didn't want to be anything like him.

That last fact had been comforting enough to Albus to let skip the painful task of making time in his (still) horribly busy schedule to meet with the boy in person. Why bother struggling to squeeze some free time out of his schedule and possibly ruin his efforts in other areas when Harry wasn't in any danger of becoming the next dark lord? Nicolas did know how to raise children after all, having done it several times before, and Albus had thought that the old alchemist couldn't mess up Harry too badly for his plans- certainly no more so than his second choice of protection, the blood-wards and that shrew Petunia.

That assumption may have been a mistake in retrospect.

Albus didn't have anything against Slytherins (even if they were frustratingly difficult to manipulate), but a Slytherin could hardly lead a group of brave Gryffindors into battle against the forces of evil- the general public just wouldn't accept it. The idiot masses wanted a bold storybook hero, not a pragmatic and crafty warrior. A Gryffindor could certainly fill the hero roll, a Hufflepuff could suffice, and a Ravenclaw _might_ be able to match up even if it was a bit of a stretch, but a Slytherin?

Not a chance.

He had expected Nicolas to have raised Harry to be a Ravenclaw from his reported bookishness, and he had plans in place to that effect… like allowing the Lovegood girl into Hogwarts a year early to re-enforce the Light side of Ravenclaw (and hopefully steer Harry that direction) and persuading the Patels to come to Hogwarts, since one of the twins was likely to go into Ravenclaw and the other was apparently a shoe-in for Gryffindor, providing a bridge between those houses and allowing Harry to gather allies in both second-hand.

Of course, that plan was ruined now that Harry was in Slytherin.

The Slytherin and Gryffindor rivalry had only gotten worse over the years despite every effort he made to stop it.

He knew, _knew_ , that it was mostly peer pressure and poor home environment that was driving the Slytherins deeper and deeper into the 'Dark' and thus away from the generally 'Light' aligned Gryffindors. Nobody was born evil, and most of them were pressured or seduced into it. Sure, there was the occasional bad egg like Tom who simply took to evil like a fish to water, but they were few and far between.

Even Gellert hadn't been evil. Not really. A genius scientist obsessed with _fixing_ what was wrong in a world he thought beyond repair, yes, but an evil master of mindless slaughter, not so much. Gellert did master the art of magical warfare and he was responsible for a lot of wide-scale destruction, but that was merely a byproduct of his attempts to do the right thing. Gellerts' initial betrayal had been based on doing what he thought was right even though it would mean destroying their friendship.

A twisted and extreme form of 'right' to be sure, given that he had intended on committing genocide, but that's exactly what Gellert had thought he was doing- the right thing.

Gellert had wanted to _fix_ the society that let muggles worldwide rule the lands and people with pettiness and cruelty. He had wanted to _fix_ the society that had passively retreated from the world instead of facing its' false accusers during the witch burnings, and he had wanted to _fix_ the society that didn't (couldn't) punish the boys who beat Arianna until... until…

…well, even if nobody else remembered the surge of revolutionary and ill-considered ideals and the oaths sworn without thought in the heat of the moment during Grindelwald's initial rise inside Germany, he still remembered.

He remembered vividly the things peer-pressure could make one do.

That was exactly why he didn't reign in Severus' so-called 'excesses'; he didn't want to cost the man the 'fellow Slytherin' image that he had managed to create through his suppression of the other three houses' chances for the House Cup. It made the Slytherin house members think he was on their side, allowing Severus to pass on the worst of the plans he got wind of (such as any planned rapes or murders… of which a few popped up every year unfortunately) while simultaneously acting as an inferior role-model of what a 'cunning Slytherin' should be.

While the plan wasn't perfect, and most of the Slytherins developed _some_ cunning over the years, most remained far less adroit at manipulation and underhanded dealings than they would have otherwise been. An example of this plans' success was young Marcus Flint, whos' natural cunning had little opportunity or reason to grow in the relatively blunt and ham-fisted house he had found himself in. Even his Quidditch strategies reeked of brute force rather than cunning guile.

The obvious cheating both in their schoolwork and on the Quidditch field was easy to overlook if it helped Severus reduce the number of girls who left Hogwarts due to rape (and who were then either murdered or disowned for 'dishonor' by their family) to zero.

For the Greater Good.

Fortunately, Severus was one of the best Slytherins to come from that troubled house in recent years (even if he had been misguided and angry as a youth), and he would pick out the few decent potentials from each year to craft into what a Slytherin was actually meant to be: crafty, sly, noble, and focused on doing _right_ in addition to doing _well_.

Dumbledore twisted slightly in his seat to examine the teacher his thoughts had been centered on and nearly chuckled at the expression of shock Severus was struggling to hide.

Apparently Severus wasn't expecting James Potters' son to be a Slytherin either.

He'd have to 'suggest' that Severus consider the boy for a spot as one of his chosen Slytherins. Whether Severus' intervention and nurturing would be enough to prepare Harry for his role as the Chosen One was questionable however.

' _Maybe I should keep Harry in mind while setting up the trap for Toms' pawn?'_

Dumbledore considered the thought.

If he did it correctly, the events to come would let Harry show the school his competence and 'heroic Gryffindor' side and at least _appear_ to be the hero the world wanted as well as partially introducing him to his role as the Chosen One. Harry could assist in actually trapping the pawn, which would also give the two of them a shared 'battle' experience and would eventually allow him an 'in' with the boy for supplying information and advice in the future. That, in particular, would be important since quite a few people just came to him with important information solely because of his reputation. One example of this was what had started these events in the first place.

He had received word completely out of the blue several weeks ago from one of the Seer conclaves that Voldemort would make a move for the Philosophers' Stone in an effort to regain his body. In response, he had immediately asked Nicolas to borrow it in order to keep it safe and to expose whoever was acting as Toms' hand. Nicolas had agreed, and he had sent Hagrid to clear out the dummy vault (which actually had a chunk of inert amber in it). He had received word that the real stone would be delivered sometime tonight.

If information like that warning appeared in his hands and he couldn't get Harry to believe it or listen to his take on it, then quite a few people could be hurt.

His initial plan had been for the real stone to be locked in a Fidelius-charmed chest in his quarters while a dummy was placed in the gauntlet trap, with the whole edifice more or less separate from the school, allowing the thief to make a move for the stone without harming the students. Tom could determine the general location of the stone (such as 'in the castle') though divinations, which was why the stone needed to actually be in the castle to begin with, but Tom would be incapable of actually stealing it if he used the Fidelius plan.

' _Now that Harry has become a Slytherin however… perhaps I should place the real stone in the trap?'_

Certainly an alchemist taught and regarded as 'acceptable' by Nicolas would be able to quickly determine if the stone in the trap was fake if he investigated it, and if Harry didn't bother to protect the stone when the final confrontation came about with the Tom's pawn then he wouldn't be able to establish himself as a hero rather than as a prospective dark wizard in the eyes of his peers (who were likely going to be on the front lines of the coming war when Tom got his body back).

…and Harry definitely needed his peers on his side to face the Death Eaters, just like he had needed his peers at his flanks to face down Gellert's Reapers.

It was the way of things for the hero to be accompanied by his heroic companions.

He'd have to make sure that Harrys' Slytherin label would not prevent those Gryffindor companions from coming to his side as the hero of the story.

But before that, he had to be sure that supporting the boy wasn't a mistake… he had been wrong about one dark lord before and had hesitated in acting on his suspicions before another went dark after all. Even pointing Severus in Harry's direction could prove disastrous if the boy had even the slightest inborn inclination to go dark.

"Severus," Albus started quietly, leaning towards his second in command, "I need you to check something for me…"

* * *

Harry looked up to the head table as the desserts vanished and the headmaster rose to his feet, ushering the hall into silence with his presence.

"Now that we are all fed and watered, I have a few start-of-term notices to give you."

Harry' eyebrow twitched upwards in disbelief.

' _It seems my initial impression of the headmaster was correct: eccentric.'_ Harry thought with surprise, frowning slightly. _'Why else would he subtly insinuate that the students were like cattle with his word choice?'_

"First years should note that the forest on the grounds is named 'The Forbidden Forest' for a very good reason: it is forbidden to students. There are a few exceptions, namely certain sixth and seventh year classes whom are granted temporary permission to enter the forest under strict supervision by their professors. However, none of those exceptions apply to any first through fifth years, a fact of which I believe some of our older students need reminding."

Dumbledore's gaze paused on a pair of redheads for a moment before he continued.

"I have been asked by Mr. Filch, our caretaker, to remind you once again of two rules that remain in effect this year. Firstly, that no magic should be used in the corridors between classes, and secondly, that your student handbooks-" the headmaster gestured with a hand, the books suddenly appearing in front of each first year much like the food had appeared on the plates earlier, "-have a self-updating list of banned items which you are required to follow."

"Madam Hooch has decided that Quidditch trials this year will be held in the second week of the term, and she has suggested that anyone interested in playing for the house teams should contact her to schedule a tryout."

"Finally I would like to note a change this year from previous years- the third floor corridor in the east wing of the castle, the door to which is now locked and marked with a 'Closed' sign, is out-of-bounds for those who do not wish to suffer a painful death."

"And now, before we go to be, let us sing the school song!"

Harry picked up his student guide and began flipping through it briskly, looking for the words to the song.

"Everyone pick their favorite tune," Harry flipped through the book faster, "and off we go!"

Harry dropped the handbook and clapped his hands over his ears at the incredible wave of horrendous noise that only vaguely resembled a song crashed over him. That was when he looked up and noticed the golden words floating high in the air above the tables.

Reading quickly, Harry caught up with the words about halfway through the song, but he refused to add his voice to the bedlam when he had a ready-made excuse for why he wasn't singing. From a quick glance around the table, it seemed that a number of Slytherins had managed to construct their own excuses for not singing (judging from the smug expressions on the quiet ones and the distaste on the ones still going).

Harry grimaced and removed his hands from his ears slowly as the school song shuddered to slow death, drawn out for nearly an extra thirty seconds by the pair of redheads Dumbledore had eyed earlier.

"~Ah~" Dumbledore said, wiping his eyes dramatically, "Music! A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

' _If that was 'Music', then I'll eat my staff.'_ Harry thought to himself, before frowning at the headmasters' poor word choice once again.

He almost stood as the other three houses stood and left the hall simultaneously, but he managed to catch himself and remain seated with Slytherin house as they waited a few moments for the crush of humanity in the hall to clear.

Then, almost as one, they stood and began heading towards the doors.

Harry moved the other direction and headed towards the head table, stopping in front of the headmaster.

"Yes, Harry my boy?" Dumbledore asked kindly, "Can I do something for you?"

Harry blinked once at the overly-familiar tone.

"I have a package I was told to deliver to you, headmaster." Harry said shortly, glancing down and handing over the brown envelope. "Dad said I could save him a trip by delivering it."

Harry almost missed the expression of shock on the elderly man's face, but he looked up just in time to catch the end of it before the emotion was submerged beneath what he now recognized as was a grandfatherly mask.

"Thank you my boy. I've been expecting this package. Now off you go, your housemates seem to be waiting on you."

That was a clear dismissal if Harry had ever heard one.

Unfortunately it was also true, the whole house appeared to be watching the exchange in silence with calculating gazes.

They didn't appear happy that he was associating with the headmaster either.

"Why were you talking to Dumbledore?" A blond-haired first-year boy ( _'Malfey I think?'_ ) asked suspiciously as the group started moving towards the dungeons.

Harry noted several eavesdroppers get subtly closer as he considered a response.

"I was asked to deliver a package by a mutual… acquaintance." He wasn't sure whether Nicolas was actually friends with the headmaster or whether their master-apprentice relationship changed the dynamic. He hadn't ever seen the two of them speak to one another after all, so any judgment he made as to their relationship would be circumstantial.

The blond considered this before seeming to come to a positive, or at least neutral, conclusion.

"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Pleased to meet you." Draco said as they stopped and waited to file through a thin door one at a time.

' _Probably a defensive measure from when the castle was used as a fortress.'_ Harry evaluated for an instant before the newly-named Draco continued onwards blithely.

"You'll find that there are some families that are better than others Potter, but you're off to a good start by getting into Slytherin. I can help you a bit more there." He offered his hand.

Harry hesitated for an instant.

The boy sounded pompous and arrogant, but he didn't want to make enemies before his first day even began. It was safer to simply make as positive an impression as possible with as many people as possible. Not to mention that Dracos' father was, in all likelihood, Lucius Malfoy, one of the few Death Eaters to escape both Azkaban and the Veil. He was a man who would likely be amongst the first to know if (when) Voldemort returned. If nothing else, his son could act like an early-warning system.

' _Know thy enemy and all that rot.'_ Harry mused, shaking the outstretched hand once and turning to take his turn going through the thin door.

He missed the pinched looks on the faces of the more Grey-aligned Slytherins.

* * *

They entered the round Slytherin common room, a cool and elegant space with expensive dark wood accents surrounding furniture and hangings of green silk in various shades. Several level hallways proceeded outwards from alcoves half-hidden by the hanging silk, leading to areas for individual dorm rooms. A massive fireplace took up the main section of the wall directly across from the entrance and a small fire burned within it, almost failing to warm the room yet providing enough heat to maintain the current, cool, temperature. Standing before this fireplace was one of the professors that Harry recognized from the head table earlier.

He stood with his back to the door, seeming to watch the fire as the last of the Slytherins filed in.

The entrance hole, an otherwise uninteresting stretch of blank wall, finally closed behind the last Slytherin and the professor finally turned, facing the students.

Harry noted his hook-like nose, his rather shiny black hair, and his black eyes, gleaming with intelligence.

After a few moments examining the students, the professor spoke softly.

"I-" He started dramatically, somehow managing to make the shortest word in the dictionary sound sinister, "-am Severus Snape, Hogwarts Potion Master and Potions Professor."

Harry blinked in surprise.

' _Severus Snape is going to be my potions professor?'_

That was certainly a pleasant surprise. Harry had read a number of research articles published by this very man during his alchemy training in the last year as well as a short interest piece in Potions Weekly a year or two ago on his potions making technique. The man wasn't quite up to Nicolas' level, but then very few people were. With enough time, Mr. Snape would likely rival and even surpass Nicolas as a potioneer, given that Snapes' achievements already rivaled Nicolas' own despite his (relatively) tender age.

Snape was the youngest British potions master in three hundred years, as well as the youngest internationally-acclaimed potions master ever. The man had close to sixty unique and totally distinct discoveries to his name since gaining his mastery at twenty, and a great many more that were minor offshoots or interesting side-discoveries of his primary research. He was not an alchemist himself, however he had enough understanding and appreciation of the art that his work always included directions for performing continuing research on top of his discoveries using alchemy.

And now Harry was learning that the man wasn't even a full-time researcher?

Harry made a mental note to never anger the man, because his work ethic and determination alone would make a formidable opponent, completely ignoring any truth there was in the rumors that he had spent some time as a Death Eater.

Harry focused on the young genius and readied himself to take mental notes.

"I am also the head of Slytherin house. Any problems or concerns you have you should bring to me before you take it to a higher authority. That having been said…"

Professor Snape paused dramatically again, causing Harry to smile internally as he noticed the other Slytherins hanging on his every word. Snape certainly knew how to play to a crowd- his timing and manner were impeccable. His lectures were likely to be quite interesting.

"…I do not interfere in house matters for things that can be solved by you, yourselves. If you have an argument with another Slytherin, use one of our dueling pits and determine the victor in the old ways. If you have difficulty understanding a subject, find a tutor amongst your colleagues yourself. If you dislike someone, then curse them. I will not stop you."

A breath.

"Aside from this culture of self-sufficiency and individual power, Slytherin house has a great many unwritten rules, but there is only one of these that I expect you to follow. Be united."

"This means, quite simply, that you are to present a united front before the rest of the school. A Slytherin at Hogwarts can only rely on other Slytherins, at least generally. In private, feel free to disagree, but when in public, present a monolithic front to stave off the dogs of the light."

A murmur of agreement swept through the room. Snape cleared his throat and _glared_ and the unrest quieted instantly.

"Now that I have gone over the major points I wished to cover, I wish to make my yearly announcement for the first years… which the second years and above should remember from their first year."

"Each of you should each read ahead of my assigned material in 'Magical Drafts and Potions' by one chapter. You should also read the reaction tables for every ingredient you use. We have a small communal library of reference material containing this information." Snape gestured to a few dark bookcases in the corner.

"Doing this will prevent you from making mistakes that could melt a cauldron or ruin a potion. It would be terrible for you to not have this knowledge, as I am usually too distracted by the brewers in the other houses to notice such errors. Obviously, the responsibility for making sure that ones' potion is not… accidently… ruined lies with the dunderheaded brewer who failed to read the reaction tables. It would also be quite terrible for me to… forget… to mention the existence of reaction tables to the members of the other Houses."

"I assume you understand my meaning?"

The older Slytherins almost to a man were sporting evil grins while the first years slowly began to join in with smiles that would make a shark jealous as they worked out the poorly-hidden message.

Harry was simply confused.

' _Reaction tables are well and good for beginner brewers and slightly helpful for the intermediate ones, but for advanced brewers it usually causes more problems than they are worth. Reaction tables allow one to copy a relatively simple potion with accuracy, but they impede actual understanding. While it is true that the tables aren't wrong, strictly speaking, the starkly defined artificial categories of ingredients in the tables conceal a great deal of information that makes the difference between an amateur brewer and a professional. For masters who are interested in making new discoveries it is anathema.'_

Harry hummed thoughtfully as he watched Snapes' face as he, in turn, watched the first years come to the realization that Harry had already dismissed as a fallacy.

' _That being the case, why is Snape stressing the importance of reaction tables to them? Dosn't he want potions masters coming from the house of the snake? If he actually favors Slytherins as much as his comments seem to imply, he would have likely mentioned that the tables were only guidelines.'_

Harry's eyes widened and he locked onto those glittering orbs, full of what he now realized was _malicious_ intelligence.

Snape turned and met Harry's eyes.

' _He_ _doesn't_ _want-'_

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden expression of quickly-concealed pain and shock that crossed Snapes' face as he looked away from Harry, coinciding with a pressure somewhere behind his eyes that indicated a Legilimency attack.

"Now get to bed and don't bother me for the rest of the night." Snape snapped, his suddenly unfriendly tone parting the students like the Red Sea as he billowed his way out of the common room.

Harry stood silently, one shocked thought prevalent in his mind as he watched the fire as the remainder of the House started to make their way to bed.

' _Snape just attacked me with Legilimency.'_ Harry thought dumbly. _'Why would he do something like that?'_

It seemed that just as he was about to figure out the answer to his question about the reaction tables, another mystery dropped into his lap.

' _This is going to take a while to figure out.'_ Harry thought, sighing as he made his way down the hallway the prefects had indicated earlier was the first-year boys' this year.

* * *

 **NOTE:**

Dumbledore may be manipulative, but he really is trying to do the right thing. He just happens to think that his way is the right way and that people _need_ guiding.

His unhappiness at Harry going into Slytherin is quite reasonable, since he was clearly setting up Harry to be the vanguard of the light in the next war against Voldemort. How else would people have 'known' that a baby defeated the dark lord rather than James or Lily?

No, it would be much more likely for people to believe James/Lily had killed the dark lord and then expired from their injuries. However, when a trusted person in power fed them the unbelievable story that it wasn't the adults, but the BABY who defeated the dark lord, wizarding society lapped it up since they were already primed to believe that a 'Chosen One' would succeed where others could not.

Examples of this social priming are Quidditch (the value of the snitch almost completely overshadows the other players' contribution), Grindelwalds' defeat (he rampaged for years until Albus 'The next Merlin' Dumbledore took him down almost solo), and their entire society (which seems to think that some people are more special than others based on birth- the whole House system and the Wizengamot with hereditary seats being the only form of law-making body).


	12. Chapter 11: Practical Problems

**Chapter 11**

* * *

Harry retrieved his copy of the Daily Prophet from the mail owl before sending it off with several more Sickles in its money pouch. The early delivery option was a great deal more expensive than standard delivery and it wasn't publicly advertised, but to the discerning (and well-connected) customer it gave an invaluable edge in reacting to unforeseen news stories.

Just the sort of discerning customer he now was after Nick's lessons on the fetid mire of politics.

"Er-" Harry started hesitantly to the empty early-morning hall as he set the paper down, "I don't know if you're listening, and I know I'm… just a _bit_ early for breakfast, but could I get a full English breakfast without the tomatoes please?"

There was a pause (in which he felt like an idiot) before a plate appeared with his meal, exactly as requested. A moment later, an empty teacup and a teapot full of tea appeared next to the meal.

"Thanks!" Harry said happily, "You're the best!"

He smiled faintly as he heard a faint sniffling sound, as though someone was trying not to cry.

He loved complementing the little buggers- they were always so open in all their dealings that you could practically _see_ them glowing with happiness from what amounted to a verbal pat on the head. It was nice to be able to make someone happy with only a few words instead of the more usual human pastime of ripping someone's happiness to shreds with the same. He supposed it was just part of the human condition to have an easier time destroying things than building them up.

Harry shrugged the thought off as he snapped the paper open sharply, straightening it as he began to read. Several moments later, he started idly eating while moving through the paper.

' _A break-in at Gringotts?'_ Harry thought as he reached the third article on the front page fifteen minutes later, skimming through the text quickly. That was… highly unusual.

There had been a handful of attempts at break-ins over the years, but after they were caught the resulting punishments usually dissuaded other such attempts from anyone with any sense at all. The fact that the perpetrator of this attempt was not captured was troubling.

Harry snorted as he read the quote in the next line, _"We're not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out of it if you know what's good for you."_ It was so predictably _goblin_ that he could practically hear the polite, yet somehow deliberately insulting tone they used with people they didn't like. He finished the rest of the article and continued to read for another ten minutes before being pulled from his considerations by a pair of students entering the hall.

It was the two redheaded Gryffindors that the headmaster's eyes had lingered on the previous night.

He watched, remaining still and silent, as the two made their way around the Gryffindor table and to the professor's table. One started to cast a series of spells on one of the chairs, while the other simultaneously uttered a short spell and started carving a series of runes into the legs with the tip of his wand. The one carving finished with his task and looked up, opening his mouth to say something to the other when he abruptly noticed Harry, sitting plainly and quietly in the open and staring straight at them.

The boy stopped breathing as his eyes and mouth bugged out in surprise at the Slytherin's unexpected presence, reaching out a hand blindly to snag his brother while staring at Harry with growing horror.

"In a minute!" Admonished the other brother irritably and quietly, "I'm not done raising the last locator ward yet and we need to get this done before anyone misses us from the house. Can you imagine how hard it would be to hide this if anyone thought to look for it?"

With that, he turned back to his spellcasting.

' _Oh this is just too easy.'_ Harry thought with a mental grin, raising an eyebrow slowly and letting a slow smile spread across his face while he shut the paper dramatically.

He could see the rune carving brother's face pale to a sickly hue. Moments later, his composure cracked under the pressure as he let out a strange wheezing sound that reminded Harry of a burst of hysterical laughter somehow coupled with a horrified gasp.

"Jeeze George," The second brother said, turning to face his brother, "You okay? It sounded like…"

Harry watched a nearly identical succession of horrified shock, paling to the color of curdled milk, and finally wheezing came from the second twin.

They remained that way for a few timeless moments, two on one side mostly frozen with indecision as their minds scrambled to find a way out of the situation and one on the other simply enjoying the completely accidental prank before Harry decided to take the initiative.

He beckoned with a single finger in a come-hither motion.

The twins glanced at each-other, seeming to communicate telepathically for an instant before making their way over to him and sliding onto the bench opposite him with identical, near-perfect, acts of unconcern and now smiling faces.

"What can we do for you today- -young Slytherin? Or perhaps you would prefer- -young Master Potter?" They finished together.

Harry marveled. It was like watching a tennis match.

"Harry is fine," He smiled in return, before letting the expression fall from his face. "And I think you already know why you're over here."

He watched their smiles vanish.

"What do you want- -littlest snake?" Their voices were carefully neutral and their faces blank, but Harry thought he could detect a hidden flame of defiance.

' _That isn't good.'_ Harry thought, adjusting his expectations on the fly, _'I'll have to make this a good thing for both of us so they won't act out in retaliation for a perceived injustice... even if I do have them over a barrel.'_

"It's not what _I_ want. It's what _you_ want. You wish to keep your activities a secret. I can keep that secret… for a price."

"As we said before:-what do you want - youngest snake?" This time their voices definitely lost a degree or two of warmth.

"I want to make this as profitable as possible for all of us, so I want to make a proposition to you before I resort to such unfair methods as extortion."

He could see a flicker of interest start to gleam in their eyes.

' _Hooked.'_ Harry thought with satisfaction.

"We're listening." The one on the left said.

"I want to suggest a trade of favors. We both give the other party a pair of favors, to be decided upon at a different time. I think that you'll likely want to use one of your favors immediately to ensure my silence on the current issue, but the fact that I won't get anything if I expose you to the professors should be reassuring. After all, if I intended on ratting you out, would I have given you the chance to sabotage my efforts in the future when I tried to collect?"

They were silent for a moment and seemed to exchange a few thoughts as they looked at each other.

"Why two? Why not- -just one?- -What does giving an extra favor- -to us that is- -do for you?"

The black-haried boy evaluated the pair of red-heads for an instant before deciding to tell the truth.

"Would you want to give me a reason to sabotage your efforts in the future? If you ever think you might need or want to collect on that second favor, you'll do my favors when I come to you with them. And, like I said, I prefer to make this profitable as possible for all of us rather than simply extorting a single favor. That path would likely cause resentment on your part. With this deal I intend make us closer to partners rather than simply acquaintances to be used by the other. Not truly equal to be sure, as I still have the upper hand of two favors over your one, but even after your secret no longer needs to remain secret you'll have a reason beyond mere honor to perform favors for me."

"Why, how… how…- -how insulting Harry! Impugning our- -honor and trustworthiness like that!"

Harry shrugged.

"I don't know you and, quite frankly, I have good reason to suspect those things given the questionable activities you were just performing on the professor's chair in defiance of any supposed respect that exists between teachers and their students."

They grinned matching grins that somehow teamed up to make the whole scene a great deal more predatory than it should have been.

"What a suspicious- -little snake."

"It is the house of the cunning after all." Harry said with a grin of his own.

They made another telepathic exchange that Harry sincerely wished he could emulate.

"Deal." The one who had carved the runes said, this time speaking alone. "And we're spending our first favor to keep you quiet about what you saw a few minutes ago."

"Nice doing business with you Messurs..." Harry frowned as he noted the social faux-pas on his part.

"… I just remembered that we haven't given each other our names. I hardly need an introduction for obvious reasons, but who are you?"

They looked startled, and then they both moved onto a false shocked look that was betrayed by their laughing eyes.

"I can't believe that anyone could be so- -ignorant of the world that they might- -possibly- - have not heard of our reputation- - as the most wiley and most clever- -pranksters to grace the halls of Hogwarts: Gred and Forge Weasely!" They finished together before shaking their heads sadly.

"And to think that some nobody- -(like Harry Potter)- -would think that he, the mere slayer of- -the Moldiest Shorts around- -wouldn't need to introduce himself to- -such august persons- -as ourselves."

Harry laughed out loud and held up his hands in surrender.

"Sorry! I hadn't realized myself in the presence of royalty."

"Royalty?" One asked carefully after a moment's pause.

"What else would you call the Princes of pranks?" Harry said seriously with a nod.

Their genuinely stunned looks made Harry laugh. A few seconds later they broke out into identical smiles and stood.

"We tip our hats to you in defeat- -this time young Harrikins. Your tongue seems- -nearly as sharp- -as your intellect.- -How can we- - mere pranksters of course- - compete with such a clever- -Dark-Lord-Slaying- -dragon riding- -werewolf taming- -Boy-Who-Lived?" They said with another dual finish.

Harry snorted.

"I'll have you know those Boy-Who-Lived books are filed under 'Fiction' for a reason. The only reason my guardians let them go on publishing was because trying to shut them down would just push them underground where I wouldn't get a cut of the profits for the use of my name."

"~Ah~ The joys and troubles- -of the insanely famous- -(and wealthy!)- -Potter of Potter.- -What ever shall he do with all that- - money and fame? Investments perhaps?- -And if so, what, exactly- - does the Potter of Potter- -invest himself in?"

Harry eyed them for a moment. Something was wrong with that previous statement, but he couldn't figure out what. It was almost like they were testing him on something.

' _I'll stall.'_ Harry decided. _'Make an excuse that they won't recognize as one immediately.'_

"My investments are currently under the control of my guardians and my family's Gringotts Manager. You'll just have to wait and see what I invest in after I get access to the main vault, just like how I'll have to wait and see the result of whatever you were planning earlier." He said neutrally, picking up his paper in a subtle dismissal.

They started to walk off before one of them hesitated.

"Where'd you get the rashers and the rest of that anyway? Breakie isn't going to start for another hour."

Harry glanced at the one who spoke before speaking.

"People think that the headmasters run Hogwarts, but Hogwarts is _really_ run by a group of creatures called house-elves who-"

"Wait, the house-elves take requests?"

Harry blinked.

"Why wouldn't they? They like active work more than just cleaning."

The twin grins growing on the faces of the pair would have sent shivers down the Hogwarts staff's spines had they been there to see it.

* * *

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good. I don't know how I missed him. He was sitting in the bloody middle of the hall so the map should have worked."

"… where's his name? And why do the footprints look like claws? And why are they so small?"

"I dunno Fred. Hmmm… I think I see something here. Got a magnify…ing… glass? ... I didn't know it could do that."

"Neither did I. What's the opposite of magnify? It won't be as useful if it's stuck all zoomed-in like this."

"Shrink? Smaller? Decrease? Reduce- Ah, that's got it. Magnify."

"Well, come on then, what's it say?"

"At-erit-sipu-teri-tsi? What the bloody hell is that? And what does it have to do with Potter?"

"Maybe the Map is malfunctioning?"

"Maybe. Reduce. No that can't be right, look over here- our names and footprints are in the right spots and- yep, it moved the right way when I sidestepped."

"Maybe this is like that weird invisible ghost that has been living in the Gryffindor tower with Percy? Peter something? Or maybe it's someone impersonating Potter?"

"Maybe… the ghost one was smaller too right? We had to use a magnifying- oh for Merlins' sake, how did we miss that for the last two years? Reduce."

"I guess we never had a grip on the Map when we mentioned a glass in the past? We're not used to speaking so formally… maybe we always said 'glass' instead of 'magnifying glass'? And yeah, I remember we had to use a glass to read his name, even if we could follow his prints around without one."

"Here, lets go check… huh, Peter isn't with Percy at the moment."

"What? Where is he then?"

"He's tough to spot between names remember? I can't… he moved in with Ron?!"

"What? Why?"

"I don't know! Look, Filch is coming this way, let's just get back to the common room and sort it out there. Mischief Managed."

* * *

"You almost have it! Just speak a little more firmly Mr. Goldstein. _Lumos._ " The short professors' wand lit like a flashlight. "You have to intend for it to happen. Intent is key. Visualizing the tip of your wand lighting up can help immensely, but raw intent is actually what forces power into the spell."

" _Lumos!_ " This time Anthony Goldstein's wand lit readily and much more brightly than the first time, if still a bit weakly, gaining quiet applause from those not focused on their own spellwork.

"Excellent!"

Harry groaned quietly.

' _Why couldn't it have been theory for a day or two? Why couldn't Monday have been History of Magic and Potions? Or Astronomy and Herbology? Or even DADA? Those classes would have at least given me a little more time to cement some friendships before my… inability was revealed.'_

"I know, insufferable mudblood isn't he?" Draco said from besides Harry, nodding pompously as though agreeing with the last Potter. "He shouldn't be so smug for casting such simple magic. Why, my father had me casting spells like this when I was eight!"

Harry brutally smothered the urge to incinerate the boy as his burning hate for the pureblood cause flared up.

Draco had been rather pleasant company for what little time they had spent together the previous night after Professor Snapes' speech, seemingly able to pick up on Harry's lack of interest in small talk and being willing to let the comfortable silence between them continue despite his obvious curiosity. However, when they had met this morning at the house table for breakfast (or in Harry's case for surreptitiously eavesdropping on the scions of the darker families), he hadn't displayed any of the same tact.

In fact, it seemed that what sharp edges Draco possessed were softened with the exhaustion of a seven hour train ride rather than hardened to abrasive levels as a normal person's did. That fact said something good about the boy's core personality, even if Harry couldn't stand him at the moment.

Brash and arrogant, projecting and loud, the well-rested Draco Malfoy of today seemed to be convinced that they were not only the best of friends already, but also that Harry saw eye-to-eye with him on a great many issues, like whether muggleborns should come to Hogwarts.

Why he would agree with such stupidity was beyond him as, completely ignoring the fact that the main champion of the pureblood cause in recent years had murdered his parents and attempted to kill him, his biological mother remained even to this day slightly famous amongst academics for being muggleborn and yet still having the best grades in her year (setting Hogwarts records in many of them).

"I'm sure you were." Harry waffled diplomatically, smiling soothingly at Malfoys' comment as he mentally tagged on the addendum, _'Let's see_ _you_ _do it then.'_

However satisfying saying such a thing out loud might be, he couldn't afford such an impolitic turnabout yet, as his tentative friendships and acquaintances were still in flux and would likely remain so for another few days. In fact, he could afford such an insult even less at the moment, sitting in a class which required practical work to be demonstrated in class. Such activities did not lend themselves easily to avoiding the inevitable questions from his housemates regarding his competence with magic.

Questions he couldn't answer.

Not completely so, as he could certainly demonstrate his ability with magic if he truly _needed_ to, but the British wizarding world was so entrenched into their use of wands that they viewed any other form of magic with suspicion or fear, which made the situation much harder to resolve than simply saying 'Hey look, I can control fire and, therefore, magic'.

The situation was partially societal, with the British wizarding world regarding other forms of magic as 'barbaric', and partially political due to the Ministry promoting the view that wandless magic required the power and control that only came with great age or rituals; which were, of course, declared dark by the Ministry. His problem was even deeper than such Ministry propaganda however, since even if the general populace _weren't_ gullible enough to believe the Ministrys' not-so-quiet insistence that wandless magic was the sign of a dark wizard or stupid enough to throw away other magical traditions as 'barbaric nonsense', Harry severely doubted that the people would overlook the fact that he _couldn't_ use wanded magic when he _could_ use the wandless variety.

' _Seriously, why do the wizards and witches of magical Britain believe the shite the Ministry is shoveling when accidental magic, the first magic children usually cause, is_ _ **always**_ _wandless?'_

He snorted.

Regardless of how this idiotic state of affairs regarding wandless magic had come about (and completely ignoring the idiocy of disregarding other cultures' opinions on the mystery that was magic), he had to deal with the consequences today. As it currently stood, the situation was a catch-22 for him, as both showing and failing to show his non-standard ability in magic would damage his situation, albeit in different ways. Showing wandless or alternative magical ability would cement him as a possible rising dark wizard or an uncultured barbarian and tank his reputation with the public at large, while failing to show ability with magic would label him publicly as a near-squib and ruin his preliminary plans to ingratiate himself with the darker families on the hunt for the remains of Voldemort.

It was good he wasn't a Parseltongue or a natural Legilimens or he wouldn't even have had a choice to begin with, such gifts being seen as a major warning-sign for a dark wizard in the public eye in recent years.

Of the two options, Harry was of the opinion that the near-squib label was the lesser negative overall, mostly because it could be overcome at a later time by demonstrating his true abilities.

The term 'late bloomer' came to mind.

He had planned initially to maintain the secret of his lack of capability with a wand for a few days while working through some of the classes which didn't require significant wandwork. That buffer of days would have let him become a somewhat established entity at Hogwarts before being recognized as a near-squib (no matter how false that label was). Being seen to be hiding his 'disability' with his initial plan of flying under the radar wouldn't have been the most glamorous of impressions to make in Slytherin in the end, but the alternative (namely being at Hogwarts with no allies at all in a house known for one-upsmanship and shark-like predation on the weak or unconnected) was nearly unthinkable.

At least, that _had_ been his plan, right up until discovering the leylines running through the floors of Hogwarts which then lead him to the inevitable question: Why couldn't he _pretend_ to cast the spells in class with his wand while _actually_ casting them with his staff?

The answer: No reason at all.

Nobody could actually detect the staff in any manner due to the layered Fidelius and notice-me-not charms, so he could preserve his 'cultured' exterior and continue forward with his plans to pump the dark for information. The magic itself could easily be shaped into a form close enough to whatever spell they were doing that day to provide at least a similar demonstration given his (rather immense) experience with shaping alchemy elements.

Nicolas had previously gotten permission for him to demonstrate the required spells with his staff in private sessions held outside during his free periods, which would have let him pass the practical portions of the classes even if he couldn't demonstrate them in the classroom, but with Harry's discovery of _indoor_ leylines ( _'and how crazy was that?!'_ ) that same permission would let him use his staff more publicly without bringing the professors down on him.

And, completely ignoring the benefits to his public persona as a whole, now that he had a means of reasonably faking spells the perception of concealing his disability would be positive in the eyes of any Slytherins who discovered it. It wasn't just cunning and resourceful to actively hide a 'weakness' from the public through careful manipulations, but ambitious as well to think he could pull the wool over the eyes of the entire magical communit-

"Give it a try Mr. Potter?"

The sudden call by the half-goblin professor startled Harry.

"Yes sir." Harry said firmly, standing and planting his cloaked and unnoticed staff firmly in one hand and raising his wand with the other.

Harry's heart sank into his shoes as he reached for the leylines and felt nothing.

There weren't any leylines.

 _Why_ weren't there any leylines?!

He carefully kept a blank face while swearing mentally with a vigour that would put sailors and certain paranoid one-eyed and one-legged master Aurors to shame.

' _This is bad.'_ Harry evaluated quickly, _'If I had managed to avoid attention it would have been alright, and if I had access to the leylines as I expected I could have simply used my staff to emulate the spell which would have been better, but now I've put my foot into it by being confident and not having any way to back it up. Shite.'_

How had this happened? He had double checked his initial observations in the hallways down to the Slytherin dorms and in the dorms themselves during the previous night, as well as rechecking the Great Hall this morning and a side classroom on his way back up. The leylines had clearly been worked into the stones somehow in each location and he had not bothered to spend the mental effort to feel out the extent of the lines after confirming that they entered the classrooms, wanting to save his energy for listening to the lecture and committing the instructions he couldn't use yet to memory.

"Constant Vigilance!" Harry murmured to himself. Another of many, _many_ examples he had noted over the years of instances in which him either having constant vigilance had salvaged a situation, or in which not having the same had come back to bite him. This was apparently one of the latter.

How was he supposed to fake the spell when he couldn't use the only style of magic he was capable of in this classroom for some reason? And if he didn't fake this spell, how was he going to overcome the stigma of squibdom that the traditional purebloods would saddle him with that he had hoped to partially avoid by delaying the notice for a week?

Harry paused as a quiet thought echoed from the depths of his mind.

' _I was planning on performing a minor deception on the source of my magic with the effects being real… but why couldn't I just fake it?'_

So truly crazy, so utterly insane was this idea that it took him nearly ten full seconds to come to grips with it completely.

It was the stupidest idea he could ever remember having.

His ability with staff-magic was useless due to the lack of leylines. He didn't have a wand that he could actually use. He didn't have any associates willing to cover for him. He had no means of directly causing the spells effects as intended by the professor. He had no means of actually passing any closer examination on the results of the magic as he could if it had been staff magic even if he _were_ to succeed in faking the spell somehow. All he really had to work with was alchemy, which certainly couldn't fix any of the other problems.

And yet…

' _Why_ _couldn't_ _I use alchemy to fake cast the spell?'_ Harry thought, the idea gaining traction as he rolled his wand over thoughtfully between two fingers.

' _The effects don't need to be real, they just need to_ _seem_ _real. It would be another step back from what we are supposed to be doing, and I doubt that I'll be able to fake many of the spells we are to study with alchemy, but I will certainly be able to fake_ _some_ _of them. I can pass off any oddities the others notice as simply being a unique quirk of my magic resulting from Voldemort's attack. It would certainly be worthwhile to go forward with my initial plan and avoid being a 'squib' if at all possible for the first few months… not to mention that it would be one of the most audacious pranks of all time to pull one over on an entire generation of magicals. I doubt even Nick or Sirius could top going through the first few months of Hogwarts without actually casting a spell.'_

And with that, his choice was made.

"Care to give it a go?" Flitwick encouraged slightly more gently after a few seconds pause.

" _Lumos!_ " Harry said forcefully, willing his magic to condense as rapidly as possible, carefully channeling it around the wand to avoid incinerating the wooden focus. He stared at the tiny sphere of pure flame, concentrating hard to keep the magic in a single point, maintain the temperature at ambient, keep the flames white with metaphysical heat, and keep it from flickering as a flame was wont to do.

"Excellent Mr. Potter! A slightly odd color, but well done! Ms. Bulstrode?" Flitwick said happily, moving onto the next student.

"Nice job. Better than that mudblood right?" Draco said smugly, "My father always said the Potter family was pretty good with their wands. Good breeding and all."

' _Well… it isn't like my muggleborn mother had_ _anything_ _to do with my birth after all.'_ Harry thought sarcastically.

"I'm sure that's it." Harry evaded gracefully as he released the magic.

It was going to be an interesting seven years.

* * *

"That sounds like a very bad idea." Fawkes murmured uncertainly. "Won't the friends you make feel betrayed that you were fooling them like that?"

"That's part of the beauty of it!" Harry answered happily, rotating and twisting an alchemically transmuted glob of water as he struggled to create an illusion of a color change using the differing refractive index of the air and water without much success.

"Most of the school seems to be prejudiced enough against Slytherins to not wish for a friendship with one, so those who can see past that and do become friends with me probably won't be bothered by something like this. I'll just explain my reasoning and given their more open minds they'll understand. And, with regards to my future friends in Slytherin, won't they just congratulate me on my cunning or be jealous of it themselves? From those unwritten rules Professor Snape mentioned last night I can confirm my initial thoughts that keeping secrets and saving 'face' are important in Slytherin and thus my not-so-little subterfuge will be admired rather than distained."

Fawkes snorted.

"I'm sure eleven year olds will be tremendously understanding."

"Why wouldn't they be?" Harry asked in a tone of confusion at the sarcasm. "Sirius was always impressed when I tricked him into something by telling the literal truth or by simply omitting certain details. So was Dad. Something about 'It's good training for dealing with the Fey' I think?"

"They're eleven."

"So?"

"They're _eleven._ "

"What has that got to do with anything?"

Harry waited a moment for Fawkes to continue and shrugged when he didn't. It wasn't like his classmates were insane or illogical. They were kids just like him. A few moments of thought would reveal that he hadn't harmed them in any way and a few more would show his cleverness- an impressive feat that would be practically a neon sign for prospective friends. Periodically impressing people was an important negotiation tactic after all. It kept them off-balance.

"This is going to be a long seven years." Fawkes groaned as he took in the direction of the abnormal child's thoughts.

* * *

So... yeah... I'm not dead, just forgetful. I promised faster updates but didn't hold up- sorry. I scrapped my initial plans and reordered where I wanted to go, it should make for a better story in the end.


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